And, in Chapter 5 of The Demon in the Mirror, Xi Feng finally gets to meet our male lead in his impeccable human form – only to be start clutching at straws (and her hair) the moment she realises that… our green dragon, really, is still a silly, unaware nincompoop at heart despite having nothing but the best (?) intentions.
In Chapter 4 of The Demon in the Mirror, we begin to delve further into the mystery of Yin’s abduction together with Xi Feng, as we discover that the small, black demon which we first encountered was not, in actuality, the demon that demanded Yin as a sacrificial offering:- so, the perennial problem remains; who is this demon, and what is its motivation?
Thanks to the long weekend (as Monday was a holiday in my country), the translation of Chapter 3 of The Demon in the Mirror has been completed early – and in this Chapter, the first interactions between our two leads finally occur (at long last)! Yes, it will take time for our dear Xi Feng to warm up to our gentle dragon, given Xi Feng’s survival instincts, miserly(?) nature, and the age gap (of 100,000 years, at the minimum) between the two, and we have little choice but to contend with what we have, for the time being.
In Chapter 2 of The Demon in the Mirror, we finally catch a glimpse of our male lead, the all-powerful, ancient, green dragon, whose brief appearance in this chapter seem to hint at the numerous hijinks and hilarity that will soon ensue. As a Xian Xia novel like Once Promised, The Demon in the Mirror requires much more imagination and world-building than The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful and I Don’t Like This World, I Only Like You, so please feel free to pose any queries, or doubts in the comments section below, and hopefully I’ll be able to offer a proper explanation in response.
Now, as I’ve mentioned in my review of The Demon in the Mirror, I’m not extremely blown away by The Demon in the Mirror due to the limited character development of the main characters, although it does still stand as a pretty awesome novel in its own right. I have, nevertheless, decided to translate The Demon in the Mirror as (1) it would help to expand the variety of translated novels available on this site, and (2) its upbeat, hilarious tone makes for an easy read (especially after the darker tone that we were exposed to in The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful). As with most Chinese mythology novels, the first couple of chapters serve as introductory chapters where we’re introduced to the main characters, and the world that is built by the author, so stay patient, and I hope you enjoy the ride!
I was craving for a Chinese mythology novel – for something grandiose and absolutely unconstrained by reality – when I started trawling through Yi Mei Tong Qian‘s novels. Now, unlike the other Chinese mythology novels that I have read (that are authored by Xing Ling, Jiu Lu Fei Xiang, and Tong Hua), Yi Mei Tong Qian‘s novels take on a more comedic and hilarious tone, and make for a relatively easy and simple read. Unfortunately, however, adoption of such a light-hearted tone inevitably gives the reader a feeling that the stakes involved in the novel are not as high, and detracts from the grand feelings generally present in other Chinese Mythology novels. As what I’ve said previously in 2016, the C-novel community generally hasn’t been able to churn out quality mythology novels, and unfortunately, this statement continues to remain true in 2020. So, I’ll continue to take what I can get.
Now, this may be old news to many of you, but The Youthful You Who Has Been So Beautiful has been adapted to the big screen as Better Days. Now, this movie adaptation is not new, and has been through its fair share of ups and downs – it was meant to premiere in the Berlin film festival in February 2019, before being scheduled to debut in June 2019, only to be further delayed till October 2019 due to the sensitive content of school bullying, and the blurry lines between good and evil of our main leads. Now that it’s finally premiered, however, I can safely say that although there are several deviations from the novel, the novel has been extremely well adapted and the directors and actors had an extremely good grasp of our key characters, Chen Nian and Bei Ye.
And now, with this final, poignant letter from Chen Nian to Zheng Yi, we have finally come to the end of The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful. It’s been a really long, and admittedly, occasionally painful translation journey, especially when I had to wrestle with myself over word choices, mull over how to best convey the nuances, the beauty, and the tiny, lovely details in the novel. It’s taken a good four years to finally translate The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful from start to finish, and I will remain forever grateful for your patience.
In this epilogue of The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful, we manage to catch small, tiny glimpses of Bei Ye’s life in prison through Zheng Yi’s letter – and it’s both sad and sweet to see our dear, dear Bei Ye grow so much – compared to the rash, hot-tempered youth he used to be. More poignantly, we manage to see in this epilogue the full extent of Zheng Yi’s regret, of his acknowledgement of his inadequacies as a law enforcement officer, and what such inadequacies could really mean for victims like Chen Nian. Yes, Wei Cai, Luo Ting, and their friends were the main culprits at fault for Chen Nian’s suffering, but can it really be said, that the omission and neglect of the law enforcement officers, didn’t make them Wei Cai’s and Luo Ting’s silent accomplices? Continue reading
And finally, with Chapter 29 of The Youthful You Who Was So Beautiful, we finally conclude the main story of Chen Nian and Bei Ye, of these two youths who struggled so desperately, and so valiantly, against the suffering and injustices that were imposed on them. This chapter is especially poignant because it recalls many of the sweet, everyday incidents that we now know will remain forever imprinted in Chen Nian’s memory, and of seemingly minor, simple gifts which we now know are irreplaceable treasures in Chen Nian’s eyes. There are, however, two short epilogues following this Chapter, so hopefully those will manage to offer better closure for us readers.
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