#also I just really like Hengwen

[fortune-maiden]

Finally finished Peach Blossom Debt

I didn’t like it as much as Imperial Uncle, but it was still very enjoyable! Hengwen is adorable <3

I think the twist about Song Yao came a bit out of nowhere though.

Also the extra felt a little pointless but it was hilarious! rip Living Immortal

The real takeaway though is that these immortals have way too much time on their hands xD

And I’m pretty sure they left behind a HUGE MESS in the mortal realm from those love trials xD

[wantmangojuice]

Peach Blossom Debt - finished - 26ch + 1 extra

Premise: Soft-hearted, romantic, destined-to-be-perpetually-single accidental-immortal MC is tasked by Heaven to play the villain in the love tribulations of two other immortals. He...does his gosh-darned best. But, also, what about MC's hopes for romance, huh, heaven? What if he wants to fall in love happily, too???

I didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did (I only bought it on a whim because I wanted to finish a relatively-shorter danmei novel) but I really did!

MC Song Yao is such an endearing character. He's immortal but definitely still has the heart and sentiments of a mortal, he cares so so much, his narration is quite funny, and every other chapter I just wanna give him a hug.

I was really really rooting for Hengwen to be the ML almost from the beginning -- and I was right! Ha!

Related to the above bullet point, yes, the ML is not immediately apparent from the get-go (the sheer number of "Oh please be the ML" comments I had in my ebook copy whenever Hengwen shows up is hilarious) which I think adds to the fun/suspense. (I admit I caved halfway through and looked it up, though, 'cause I knew if it wasn't him I needed to brace myself for the disappointment hahaha.)

And on that note, regardless of whether they're the endgame pairing or not, I really enjoyed the twist and turns and reveals and feels that the Song Yao-Hengwen relationship had. I think one of the reasons they endeared themselves to me was that according to the book, they've been friends for over a thousand years, and their interactions certainly sold me on that. Everytime they're in a scene together there's an air of familiarity and comfort between them that I appreciated so much. Like, sure, there are complications, like how Song Yao has been pining for Hengwen for so long, and how Hengwen's nature as a never-been-mortal immortal makes it sometimes difficult for him to understand certain things about Song Yao-- but the bedrock of their relationship is that they're friends who can rely on each other first and foremost, and I enjoyed that.

The main couple getting their HE by the skin of their teeth arrrgh I love them.

Loved the interesting interplay of debt and "being fated" and how much of that really matters in the end (especially since it's revealed in the end that Song Yao's "destined to be perpetually alone" thing was actually all just hogwash).

What does it even mean when your fate is tied to someone else's, anyway? Question: If various karmic debts mean that you're soulmates with someone you don't love, and the person you love is not your soulmate, what do you do? Answer: You love the person you love anyway, even if you have to go to extreme impossible lengths shuffling those debts and those karmic ties around.

Honestly, the more I think about how things were resolved at the end of the book, the more I like it. Song Yao & Hengwen really found a way to make each other their soulmates: Song Yao by breaking all their other soulmate bonds, and Hengwen by everything he did afterwards that resulted in the two of them forming a karmic bond. They essentially became soulmates by choice, which is such a neat way to wrap things up.

(Interestingly, this is the second book I've read which plays with the "the person you fall in love with is not your soulmate and your soulmate is not the person you love" thing, the first one being Qi Ye, and even then Qi Ye was kind of a borderline case because there's some hints that WuXi was, in fact, Jing Beiyuan's soulmate after all. Just... something about the whole concept of "No matter what the bonds of destiny says, you are the one my heart has chosen" kind of gets me right in the kokoro.)

Probably gonna be jumping into the sequel of this book soon out of desperate hope to read more of these characters hahahahaha.