Review:
I waited way too long to review this, but I have notes, so I'll do my best.
Anyway, the first half of the volume is a flashback to Xie Lian's early days as a god, desperately trying to protect everyone, even if it involves breaking rules. He is, however, doomed to failure, and his efforts make things worse, leading to the Human Face Disease. In the second half of the volume, Xie Lian investigates a fetus spirit and spends time with Hua Cheng.
Review:
Xie Lian, accompanied by Lord Wind Master, is sent to Ghost City by Jun Wu, to look into the whereabouts of a missing heavenly official who put out a distress signal in the area. This puts Xie Lian in Hua Cheng's domain and gives him a chance to finally see Hua Cheng's true form. In the process of protecting another heavenly official, Xie Lian accidentally reveals a dark secret he never intended anyone to learn about.
However, things are not what they seem, and in order to ensure that the truth is revealed, Hua Cheng steps in. After that, we get a lengthy flashback to Xie Lian's younger days, before his first ascension, when he was loved by everyone and rescued a street urchin from falling to his death.
Review:
This first volume of the series introduces Xie Lian, the former crown prince of the Kingdom of Xianle. When he first ascended and became a god, he had many worshipers and was loved by his followers. Unfortunately, his caring nature and desire to save the common people turned out to be his downfall, and at the start of this story he has ascended for the third time and is mostly powerless, penniless, and unlucky. Good thing he's pretty much used to it by this point.
In order to pay off his debts, Xie Lian agrees to look into reports of a ghost groom who's been kidnapping and likely killing brides in the Mount Yujun area. He is reluctantly assisted by Nan Feng and Fu Yao, two junior martial officials.
In the second half of the volume, Xie Lian meets a mysterious young man named San Lang and journeys to Banyue Pass to investigate attacks on travelers in the area.
Review:
Wei Wuxian is freaking out after the events that ended the previous volume and decides to go to Guanyin Temple with Wen Ning in order to put some space between himself and Lan Wangji. Unfortunately, Jin Ling shows up too, and he and Wei Wuxian end up captured, along with Lan Xichen. You would think the characters would be too busy trying not to die for romance to enter anyone's minds, but you would be wrong - everything somehow manages to happen simultaneously. Wei Wuxian demonstrates that he can flirt and fight at the same time.
The first 187 pages of this volume wrap up the main story, while the rest of the volume is composed of eight extra stories, most of which feature both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji and show either their lives after the main story or scenes from when they were teenagers.
Review:
Here we have more flashbacks, this time to the period after the Sunshot Campaign. The Wen Clan has nearly been wiped out, and its remnants are being cruelly mistreated by the Jin Clan. Wei Wuxian, who has calmed down considerably since volume 3, is helping Wen Qing find her beloved little brother Wen Ning and ends up establishing a new home for the remnants of the Wen Clan at the Burial Mounds, the very place where Wen Chao once left him to die.
This volume completes the story of Wei Wuxian's downfall and then jumps back to the present. Wei Wuxian's identity has been revealed and he is believed to be responsible for a horde of fierce corpses. Pretty much everyone except Lan Wangji and some of the junior cultivators wants to kill him. However, some undeniable and shocking truths finally come to light.
This review includes slight spoilers.
Review:
If you're expecting this volume to pick up where the previous one left off, you'll be sorely disappointed, because the author starts this off with a 200-page flashback to Wei Wuxian's younger days, before he became known as the Yiling Patriarch, when Jiang Cheng still regarded him as a brother and lots of beloved family members were still alive.
The Wen Clan of Qishan demands that each of the other clans send at least twenty sect disciples to Qishan to be "educated" by members of the Wen Clan. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are two of the ones sent by the Jiang Clan. Lan Wangji is sent by the Lan Clan - which Wei Wuxian learns has been devastated by the Wen Clan. The group of sect members ends up at the mercy of Wen Chao, the youngest son of the leader of the Wen Clan, a bully who delights in sending them after yao beasts and then claiming their victories as his own. Things only get worse from there and eventually lead to Wei Wuxian inventing and embracing demonic cultivation.
Review:
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji follow the dismembered body's trail to Yi City, where they learn the tragic story of A-Qing, Xiao Xingchen, his friend Song Lan, and Xue Yang. This then leads to Jin Guangyao and, finally, to the discovery of the dismembered body's head.
I definitely preferred the first half of this volume, in Yi City, to the second half. The supernatural aspects were fabulous, and both Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji got to be awesome. Wei Wuxian acting as a confident and calm mentor/babysitter for the younger cultivators was fun. Also, I enjoyed the massive tragedy that was Xiao Xingchen and Song Lan's story, even if I had trouble remembering what any of it had to do with the series' larger story. My heart hurt for pretty much everybody but Xue Yang.
The second half of this book was mostly cultivator politics, which I wasn't nearly as interested in. All I really cared about were the details surrounding the dismembered body.
Not a very informative review, I know, but I wanted to finally get this off my plate so I could move on to the next volume and eventually let myself do the thing I really want to do, which is read Heaven Official's Blessing. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation is okay, but definitely my least favorite of MXTX's works. It just doesn't have enough fun character interaction. I need more than the occasional "Lan Wangji is hilariously drunk and Wei Wuxian is oblivious" scene.
Extras:
A couple full-color illustrations, a character and name guide, a glossary, and black and white illustrations throughout.
Review:
At the time of his death Wei Wuxian was widely known as the Yiling Patriarch, the feared and skilled commander of a vast undead army. Thirteen years after his death, Wei Wuxian reawakens in the body of Mo Xuanyu, a young man who was expelled from the Jin cultivation sect for being gay. After a bit of investigation, Wei Wuxian figures out that Mo Xuanyu was abused to such a degree by his family that he turned to demonic cultivation, freely offering his body in exchange for revenge.
This essentially means that Wei Wuxian is being given a second chance at life, but it's not long before he's once again drawn into the orbits of those he knew during his first life. The Yiling Patriarch burned a lot of bridges, and Wei Wuxian figures most of these people would want to kill him if they knew who he really was. Unfortunately, for some reason Lan Wangji, a cultivator who was his polar opposite when they were growing up, seems determined not to let him out of his sight.
Review:
Shen Qingqiu (SQQ) has submitted to Luo Binghe (LBH), which makes him more than a little uncomfortable now that he's finally realized the book he's in has long since become a danmei novel and he's LBH's love interest.
Luckily for SQQ, there are still plenty of hidden storylines and details to save him from having LBH's undivided attention. Unfortunately, one of those hidden storylines involves LBH's father, who's so powerful that even the webnovel's original author never thought up a satisfactory way for LBH to beat him. That's going to be a problem.
Review:
It's now three years after the events that wrapped up volume 1. Based on his knowledge of the original web novel, Shen Qingqiu (SQQ) figures he has another two years to prepare for Luo Binghe's (LBH) return. However, while investigating a mysterious plague, SQQ discovers that LBH has, in fact, somehow come back early. He also understandably feels betrayed by and upset with SQQ.
Everything is now out of whack - SQQ's preparations, his understanding of the overall story, his ability to predict how LBH will react and what he'll do. But he figures his best chance for survival involves sticking with his original plan as much as possible.
This review includes a few spoilers, mostly because I couldn't help indulging my urge to write about the series as a whole and not just this one volume.
Review:
Proud Immortal Demon Way is an incredibly long online serial, a "stallion" novel about Luo Binghe (referred to as LBH from here on out), a humble young cultivation disciple who is mistreated by Shen Qingqui (SQQ), the Lord of Qing Jing Peak, until he eventually awakens to his demonic powers, gathers up a massive harem, and kills everyone who formerly mistreated him. Shen Yuan has just spent 20 days plowing through Proud Immortal Demon Way when he suddenly dies and wakes up in the body of SQQ.
Shen Yuan had lots of complaints about Proud Immortal Demon Way and was known for being a massive anti-fan. As SQQ, he is told by System, a voice only he can hear, that he's being given the opportunity to "transform a stupid work into a magnificent, high-quality, first-rate classic" (14). It's a chance to finally address the original work's inconsistencies, plot holes, and various details that are brought up only to never be mentioned again. Unfortunately, the original SQQ was a scum villain who betrayed his sect and eventually had his arms and legs chopped off by LBH, the protagonist with invincible plot armor. If SQQ dies the same way now, Shen Yuan is dead as well. His first instinct is to suck up to LBH as hard as he can, but OOC (out of character) behavior is forbidden until he can fulfill some initial requirements.
SQQ somehow has to survive long enough to unlock additional abilities, earn various types types of points (B-points, awarded for being a badass, are the most prominent, but System adds other at will) so that he can afford to break rules or screw up here and there, and somehow still accomplish whichever story events System decides are vital to the book's existence while transforming Proud Immortal Demon Way into a "better" story.
