This time I will happily and willingly recommend you a title that changed my life, entirely. So, I confided what happened to myself in the past year. Well, not my whole life but a major part of my life. Right, being a Fujoshi. And nowadays, being one of them is absolutely my middle name. I am immersed too deeply in this world.
And this title is actually the most and recently finished book that I read. This is actually a popular title, considering that now there will be adapted donghua (animation) and ongoing manhua of it. The fandom is also very huge. Trust me, even if you are finished reading the book already, the fandom will shower you many things to satisfy your thirst.
Long story short, this is another Mo Xiang Tong Xiu novel, the author of the renowned Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation novel (or Mo Dao Zu Shi), which "The Untamed" Chinese Drama is adapted from. I fell in love with the drama first actually then decided to read the book instead. Hell yeah, the book was an eye opener to me, that lead me to discover the fandom of both novel and the drama. From that, I got to know there are other novels by MXTX author, then I decided to read them also.
Even before I decided to read it, I had a hunch that I would love it so much, and I was right. I fell in love way too deeply with this title, even comparing to previous one (MDZS) that introduced me to this kind of world.
So, let's start talking about this one.
The title is Heaven Official's Blessing, 天官赐福 (Tiān Guān Cì Fú). I will start to shorten it as TGCF instead, okay?
Cited from NovelUpdates (this is my recent visited websites), here is the summary:
Eight hundred years ago, Xie Lian was the
Crown Prince of the Xian Le kingdom. He was loved by his citizens and
was considered the darling of the world. He ascended to the Heavens at a
young age; however, due to unfortunate circumstances, was quickly
banished back to the mortal realm. Years later, he ascends again–only to
be banished again a few minutes after his ascension.
Now, eight hundred years later, Xie Lian ascends to the Heavens for
the third time as the laughing stock among all three realms. On his
first task as a god thrice ascended, he meets a mysterious demon who
rules the ghosts and terrifies the Heavens, yet, unbeknownst to Xie
Lian, this demon king has been paying attention to him for a very, very
long time.
Honestly, I reread the summary for countless time and didn't understand a thing at first. Since I was new to this Wuxia-Xianxia novels before and totally blank for this kind of fiction, I was never interested when reading the summary. The same goes for MDZS. But luckily I still decided to try reading it first, or else, I might regret in my whole life to skip such a greatest story of all time.
And so for a new-starter, there are some basic thing that maybe you have to know before entering this kind of world,
1. Please familiarize yourself to Cultivation world first.
As a non-Chinese or someone that have no knowledge about cultivation world, it will confuse you about the basic term or the plot line. I am also not a master of this and still trying to understand the whole situation.
I am thankful enough to start learning it from watching The Untamed and MDZS donghua so I could portray and illustrate in my mind when reading the novel after. Well, how can I imagine when it tells that they are riding their sword... Like how can that happen? My past self could not even imagine how ridiculous it was (before).
But MDZS is a Wuxia novel, and TGCF is a Xianxia novel. Please... Please look for the differences by yourself. In my honest opinion, I am doing a nice approach, to start with Wuxia (martial art) then proceed to Xianxia (more about immortality, like the next step of Wuxia).
TGCF is telling about the 3 realms, Heavenly Realm, Human Realm, and Demon Realm. Please put your understanding of this kind of fiction. Even after understanding the Wuxia world, I was still struggling while being amazed with this Xianxia world. So my understanding is, there are two kind of person, a normal person (like all of us) and cultivator person, who studies cultivation in order to gain immortality. And then if you are worthy enough after gaining immortality, you will be likely to ascend as Heavenly God. Then, if a person died horribly with deep hatred, he/she can become a ghost/demon. What a whole new world (at least to me).
2. There will be many new terms that you may need to take notes.
I told you, like Dianxia, Shidi, Shixiong, Shijie, Shizun, and so on. But usually the translator will put the meaning first before use it as its original word later. But then, once you are familiar with the term, you can't help but saying those words as if it is your own language.
3. The list of characters are lining up, memorize it precisely.
This is also the great pain in the ass. The name of persons will be too many for you to memorize, for start. Usually I saved the list of characters (like a cheat sheet) and took a peek before I memorized them all. Moreover, a person can bear at least two names, the birth name and the courtesy name. To make it more complicated, even TGCF added one more name, the name of their palace (if they are Heavenly Gods, they have each palace/temple) and usually called by them. So at least three for each.
(Maybe that explained why I don't remember anything at all these days other than TGCF?)
Wow so many words already and I don't even start to review it? Okay, I will start then.
But let me put my favorite scene part from the donghua trailer first here,
