I'm worried about Li Shan :(

Thank you, I'll definitely give Gaudy Night a try then! The premise of that one intrigues me the most too because I love mysterious letters. I might end up going for Strong Poison > in between novel > Gaudy Night to try out a few of her works

Li Ji and Zeng Qingluo are so fun. Li Ji is SO unhinged and Zeng Qingluo has some cool moments dealing with her (even if she's not as calm as she's pretending to be)

This is the screenshot, I saw someone posted it on the baihe subreddit.

I'm interested but I'm also confused by why they wouldn't post this teaser in more accessible places

books didn't have a chance to take off in English fandom because of the lack of complete translations in the early years. Personally, I enjoyed Breaking Through the Clouds but I dropped The Sword Named No Way Out because it seemed like it had a stereotypical, only cares about the shou, yandere gong

I usually like focus on the one-off characters in detective novels rather than the detectives themselves. That's why with Christie, I don't care that her detectives don't have a lot of depth, because I think the actual suspects and victims are interesting characters, especially in her best novels

Is it cheating to sleep with your wife's other self, important question this novel raises

(Well it hasn't raised it yet but I'm thinking of it. Ning Yuan called it a love triangle!)

and medical skills are often connected to being a machinist in this world.

Wait so Bian Jin's shizun had a disciple who had the potential to become a double S tier machinist, but later had her legs broken and became "useless"? My theory is that she's the mysterious double S tier machinist they've mentioned before. Also maybe she's Guyuan because she was a disabled doctor

Yess I love the trope of "younger character gets to witness their older love interest's childhood". Especially if they start feeling protective over watching their love interest get mistreated

I ship Qin Wushang/demon seed

Recent reveals and interactions have been making me get into Diwu Que and He Lanzhuo more too, I mean I found them fun before but I'm getting very intrigued by what's going on with He Lanzhuo

Ahh, I am SO into Bian Jin and Shen Ni's relationship

I've read your review of 清平乐! One weakness you mentioned, not developing the love interest's feelings well, I wonder if it's a recurring problem because I've heard those complaints about 春如旧 a few times too, so I wonder if it'll be a thing in 桃花曲. I'm interested in seeing what you think of it!

Lol not surprised about Ning Yuan. And I can't remember if 降龙诀 spends long on these parts at first, but I'll say I felt like it ended up doing interesting things with the transmigration/system setting to reveal more of the story, rather than just a cheap plot device to make things a certain way.

Yeah, that trope almost always makes the character feel flatter and the romance less interesting to me. I like characters getting to have complex relationships and feelings with other people!

being disappointed by the second half of Minister Xie (also curious what you think her kink is). But I'm also curious about your thoughts on Jue Ge and Yu Huan. I've had some of Jue Ge's books on my TBR forever but they are... so long