incidents and accidents, hints and allegations

Last night, Chad took the kids to see Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. I did not go, because they went to the drive-in and a prior experiment (with the entirely forgettable Free Guy) had shown that that mode of viewing did not work well for me, and also because I'm kind of not feeling the MCU at the moment.

Since I had a luxurious three-plus hours all to myself, I binged most of season one of Heaven Official's Blessing, the donghua (animated) adaptation of Mò Xiāng Tóng Xiù's third novel of the same name (also abbreviated TGCF from the Chinese). I finished it this morning, because it's short: 13 episodes that range from 18-32 minutes, including opening and end credits. In the U.S., it's available to stream on Netflix and to buy on Amazon.

The book is very, very long—about 750k words in the fan translation—and S1 is roughly the first half of book one of five, so the donghua is nowhere near the full story. Nevertheless, the first season is satisfyingly structured. Our protagonist, Xie Lian, has just ascended to Heaven for an unprecedented third time (actually, the second time was already unprecedented, which makes the third almost unbelievable). The season consists of two investigations back in the mortal realm, the first bracketed by time in Heaven and the second by cozy domestic interludes with San Lang, a mysterious young man who shows up to keep Xie Lian company and help him out, not only with fixing up the decrepit shrine that Xie Lian is building (to himself, because he has no worshippers any more) but also with the second investigation.

I really enjoyed Xie Lian generally and his relationship with San Lang specifically. Xie Lian is kind, calm, and accepting, but also clever and competent. His backstory clearly contains an enormous amount of tragedy, but in the present he's a very chill and pleasant person to spend time with. And his relationship with San Lang is also quite relaxing; sure, he repeatedly tests San Lang to see if he's a ghost, concluding that either he's alive or he's the most powerful ghost around, but they enjoy each other's company and work well together, so why shouldn't they be friends unless and until conflict arises? (Friends, of the sort with only one bed, and extensive bridal-carrying, and sucking venom out of a wound, you know. And yet this comes off as tender and sweet rather than a source of tension, like CQL!Wangxian post-timeskip.)

The investigations themselves had some good magical and horror bits, and enjoyable side characters. (Xie Lian is assisted by two minor deities who serve rival martial gods, and their squabbling amuses me because I am easily pleased sometimes.) I did not like the investigations' upshots, however, because to me they seemed to be more of the same of things I did not like about The Untamed in terms of its treatment of women, disability, and ethnic minorities.

All the same, I've generally heard very good things about this story overall, so I've started reading the book and so far am enjoying it (and finding the donghua a faithful adaptation). (Edit:) And the fan translation has been officially licensed for US publication, along with the rest of MXTX's novels, so I'll be able to directly support the author and translator starting in December. (I thought there were two complete fan translations and I was reading the wrong one, but I was incorrect.)

Please do not post spoilers past S1/chapter 31 in comments, thanks, and please mark any spoilers for that portion that you do post.