#dmbj manhua

[taomubiji]

Random DMBJ Trivia Part 2

Wu Xie is 181cm or 5'11''. Hei Yanjing is 185cm or 6'1''.

In the novel, Hei Yanjing has a degree in music and anatomy from Germany. In The Lost Tomb, Wu Xie studied in Germany and in Tomb of the Sea, Huo Daofu also studied in Germany.

He Longlong, who played Huo Daofu, was an actor in an agency NPSS owns. He left the agency before Reunion aired and as a result, wasn't included in any promotional pictures for the show.

Li Cu was born sometime around 1996 in the novels. Based on this, he will be 28 years old in 2024.

Wu Xie has described Zhang Haiyan/Zhang Hailou as an "evil madman" and reminded him of Hei Yanjing.

Hei Yanjing's birthday (January 23) and Xie Yuchen's birthday (October 3) likely originated from official merchandise that was released.

One of the head writers for Ultimate Note, Tian Liangliang, also worked as a screenwriter on The Lost Tomb 2.

Qi Yu's name has been mentioned in Volume 2 and Restart. However, in the animation Buried Tree Devil and the television adaptations The Lost Tomb 2 and Reunion, his name was taken out.

The color of Zhang Qiling's tattoo was initially described as being 青色 (Qīngsè) which can mean blue, green, blue-green, or even black. This is why the color is described as green in Cavern of the Blood Zombies and may be why the tattoo is so blue in The Lost Tomb. In later novels, the tattoo is described as black.

More than six thousand modifications were made to the online version of Sand Sea 2 to meet publishing requirements.

The artist company that worked on the early editions of Wu Xie's Privates Notes, also worked on the Daomu comic.

Part of the Warehouse 11 arc in Reunion: Sound of the Providence was not included in the final product which means the Warehouse 11 arc was intended to be even longer.

In the Restart comic, Boss Jiao feeds an unloyal employee to his pet alligator named Charlie.

The first chapter of DMBJ was posted to Qidian in July 2006. The novels will be 20 years old in 2026.

Zhang Qiling's iconic blue hoody is said to have originated from the first edition of the Daomu comic. However, other fans believe it originated from early official artwork by the same artist company which was subsequently replicated in fan art.

[foxofninetales]

I was reminded of this ridiculous bit from the DMBJCQ manhua.

Pangzi decides he wants to have new pictures taken of the Iron Triangle and has the brilliant idea that he knows a couple of people with cameras! Why not use them!

So he sends out the call!

Paparazzi on paparazzi violence, LOL.

Picture taking time!

Waiiiit a minute

WAIT A MINUTE

In all fairness, Pangzi, what did you expect?

[unforth]

A note on the Bilibili comics situation lest my optimisim gave anyone hope:

nope, it increasingly sounds like the announcement DOES include the app, it's just worded badly and for whatever crappy reason they decided not to tell people who exclusive use the app (my guess, the reason is money: people won't top up coins if they know the app is going away).

Reasons I say this:

The official Bilibili Discord has announced that the app is closing.

I found out someone I know through fandom does translation for the international app, and while I don't have permission to give disclosures of what they said (they did NOT say the app is closing, to be clear), what they told me also supports the conclusion that the entire thing is going away.

My hopefulness and careful reading has not been rewarded; sounds like they're just very bad at giving announcements. Why am I not surprised?

Anyway, definitely is time to read up on anything you were hoping to finish and save your faves. Here's my read/reading list. Some of these I'll DEFINITELY be looking for alternate sources for, and I may pay to finish Kiss the Abyss before the app shuts down at the end of February.

...or it's time to suck it up and start just reading stuff in Chinese. I'm not really good enough yet but when else am I gonna learn?

[rigelmejo]

i’m listening to a random audiobook i found called 我是凶手 (I tell you what it SOUNDS cute, it sure does Not sound like its about ‘i’m a murderer’ so far lmao). and they keep playing this slow harmonica sounding music clip that is screaming to me ‘final fantasy vii soft warm emotional moment’ and it’s absolutely giving me whiplash lol. I’m like ‘oh yeah okay so gay possibly enemies? wait WHY is cloud crying in the countryside in my mind rn’ 

I think.... this is what the novel is? https://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=5301119  我是凶手��者：千若 but... i don’t think that’s right, what i’m listening to has 180 chapters as far as i can tell... not just the 5 I’m seeing on jjwxc... this is what i’m listening to, except i’m listening on bilibili. https://www.ximalaya.com/sound/615931684 what novel am i even listening to...? i just clicked whatever bilibili’s been recommending me since it regularly gives me danmei audiobook recommendations and this looked ‘crime’ genre and i do love that.

[lunarriviera]

mo du mains—forever suffering over justice in the dark being cancelled, unshutuppable about it. will never have an english license but don't care because e. danglars already did the best translation possible. follow people around the internet begging someone to let them describe the insanely complex plot in detail. true stamina. ability to withstand whump like you cannot imagine. come for the fade-to-black romance, stay for 600k of convoluted procedural. get very worked up about childhood trauma and their poor little meow meow fei du, will grab your collar weeping, hundreds of pictures of him fall out of their pockets. probably has a murder board in their living room.

dmbj mains—yes we get it it's not a BL okay okay already. npss never finishes anything so fans get to wallow in eighteen novels, nine dramas, a dozen movies, manhua and donghua—and literally six plays, something that should be impossible to stage given that it's a franchise about tomb raiding. truly the star wars of china. even though everyone knows qin hao is the hot wu xie, most get sucked into the franchise via gateway drug zhu yilong, but then are somehow unable to leave (tomb curse?). vast reams of fic feature every imaginable ship. more ships than a naval battalion. multishippers' paradise. do you understand that there are a lot of ships. heihua stans get emotional over sunglasses and the colors black and pink placed next to each other. don't ask why the ship is called pingxie or you will get a TED talk, something something bronze gate something something ten years' promise something something if you disappeared at least i would notice. any random dmbj fan will have strong opinions about liu sang. xiaoge often played by a dancer because he has to be a) forever 19 years old and b) literally able to fly. none of the timelines make sense and all of the actors are randomly different ages but don't point this out or you will never hear the end of it. very likely you will never hear the end of it anyway. if you ask a dmbj fan about any of this it's like inviting a missionary at your door to come inside and talk with you about the bible.

Western Danmei Fandom Archetypes

2ha mains - ‘READ THE BOOK READ OUR BOOK NOW sobs about HYX something about hole READ THE BOOK NOW shout out to the absolute unit’ - your book is a terrifying masterpiece and CWN is the kind of character Shakespeare could only dream of crafting and all you do is scream and make terrible jokes, excellent work

mdzs mains - they’re hard to hear over the sound of their own ongoing wars tbh - ‘the author is DEAD unless she says something that proves me right - everyday means everyday!!!! BUT ONLY WITH LUBE! WWX desecrated my mom’s corpse but it wasn’t HIS FAULT, Alexa play wangxian.mp3’ you have all the best and all the worst things about being a massive fandom and if you are not Chinese you need to be throwing flowers at the feet of the Chinese members of this fandom (and every Chinese culture fandom tbh, translations, cultural explainers and endless patience, folks are generous as hell) cus y’all are ANNOYING. Anyway, special shout out for the yi city youts, living in their own darkest timeline cus CQL mains won’t let you have dark and disturbing things

TGCF mains - the simpiest gong and the most smiley shou so quite often y’all miss the heart of darkness in your own story! TGCF is a jamboree of pain, stop selling it as sweet autumnal walks! The delusion that is Beefleaf is a collective trauma response to a deeply harrowing side plot that involved arguably MXTX’s most loveable side character! Jun Wu gives 2ha villains a run for their money in terms of corpse heavy architectural structures! That being said, canonical Self insert porn, and you have a ferret in a cute hat, which is fresh and exciting, not a dog or a fox or cat or a dragon like every fucker else, well done

SVSSS mains - I have to keep it real y’all are a bunch of edgelords, and smug as hell but I’m finna allow it because your (reluctant) gong is the sweetest (sqq if you topped him he might not cry! Just a thought. Ok he might cry less) and you’re right, witty meta with one (1) harrowing scene of like borderline consensual non con (if your focus is sqq) or just plain non con (if your focus is lbh? But the perpetrator is the system? a sword? Their partner trying to save their life?) ent for everyone and people misunderstand your chaotic ass text a lot, because they don’t want to ask difficult questions about ‘what consent even means’ and ‘the intricacies of a meta take on a genre that is from a culture they did not grow up in and found out about on tumblr’ So you know. Frighten people out of your fandom with your in jokes, it’s ok. Also a cumplane is a horrific image when you don’t know what that means, exemplary work.

WOH mains - my beloved Shanrens, y’all and your beloved cast deserved so much better than 813 and you have my whole heart. You are a bit unhinged, cus you only eat ice. Y’all are horny as hell, which makes sense cus your leads were stunning and push hard at the F of RPF, let’s keep it real. All these danmei characters are pretty dark, but yours don’t have a war to hide behind, they’re just like that, (I’m over simplifying, sometimes you have to eat your daddy to survive and that’s ok 😭��) so you are the most feral of them all. Congratulations. I’m happy for people who’s focus is Yexie, but there are about 6,368 lesbians who found love in hopeless place just waiting for you to write about them, please, I don’t ask for much but write some strap on content I BEG. Speaking of which, shouts to the Nya-Xu girls, you’ve got everyone doing pet play on main and THAT? That is what fandom is about.

Guardian mains - you staggered, limped, dragged yourself across the floor so everyone else could shimmy forwards. You got a good theme tune, well done on your musical taste. Everyone needs to put respect on your name but they don’t, because your show ran out of money half way through 😭 and what little they had was spent almost exclusively on getting two gorgeous leading men and giving them NOTHING to work with (and the snake ladies wardrobe) 😭😭😭

Advance Bravely mains - you’re right, it’s a Dadaist masterpiece, but this shouldn’t be your main, beloved, please watch word of honour, gong jun is in it and everything.

Winter Begonia mains - the thing is, you want people to sit with you! Your show is beautiful in every way, and you advocate for it so softly, with such love. But you look like high art and it’s scaring the sluts away. Make some memes!

Sleuth mains - this fandom seems to divide cleanly into 30 somethings that are tired and might wake up in the middle of the night to strangle you at the slightest provocation and gender fuckers that want to be topped by Jin San and honestly? Mood. Y’all are kinkier than you’d think, much like the source material, but mostly you are just here to eat and sigh wistfully at Fu Meng Paul thirst traps while you write service top porn. If you read that as a RongZhi main and couldn’t see yourself you need to read it again.

Qi Ye mains - we get it, you can read, and yes, ZZS is darker than we ever knew and JBY is more of a mess and we need to be more scared of Wu Xi than we are, and Helian Yi is not prince Jin. Counter point: Prince Jin is a simp and it’s FUNNY, it’s nice having Xiyuan as like, ethereal couple goals and ZZS kills a toddler in SHL and then dumps WKX just for REMINDING HIM, we know what he is, even if he is pretending he does not see. It’s a real good and funny book though, you’re right.

Thousand autumn mains - one guy in your animation looks pretty hot and slutty with his shirt all open and the non jiang purple but you never really sell it, come on! Do some evangelism, we’re never getting HYX so I may as well read something.

BONUS nirvana in fire (it’s not a danmei but if you don’t watch it they take your non problematic consumer card away, and do you know what? That’s fair) - y’all are sophisticated. Smart. Aesthetes. You’re here for POETIC CINEMA, and will accept nothing less. But no one needs your meta, the show is clever enough on its own, stand down. Make some memes instead. We need more porn in this here fandom.

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

fan art of daomu biji for mooncake festival (the lost tomb/grave robbers’ chronicles) - wu xie × zhang qiling (aka naivete × xiaoge) - part ① -by 刘巴布liu babu

双黄白莲蓉shuāng huáng bái lián róng: mooncake with double yolks and lotus seed 

[mejomonster]

Liu Yuning’s Hei Xiazi wins over Baron Chen’s (even though Baron Chen was my first time seeing the character and definitely left me an impression of what i ‘assume’ the character is like - a matrix wannabe for one)

mainly because Liu Yuning’s version has this chaotic bi gremlin energy that hei xiazi Definitely Has

like if seeing him doesn’t make a random person go ‘who the hell is that bi disaster man with the mullet?’ then it just isn’t The Vibe 

[selenuntius]

guess who’s back

I guess I never really left but I’m putting my scans hat back on. Letting myself just... not clean everything was very liberating. So what I’ve decided to clean will be very inconsistent, but I’m looking into more fonts so hopefully that’ll be better. I think what I did clean looks very good though, and it’s only sfx that I haven’t cleaned

[thosch3i]

Hi hi! So the lost tombs and chronology all super confuse me. So tlt2 ended on a cliffhanger that was not resolved by tlt3 which is ultimate note, but now there is another tlt3 that I am guessing is made by the same studio as tlt2 (but not UN) that actually follows tlt2? And it has the same WPZ as tlt2 (but sadly different WX, ZQL though I’m sure these guys are great). You seem to know what you’re talking about so I’m hoping you can help!

UN also ended on a cliff hanger so I’m wondering if they’ll get a sequel from their studio that comes before tomb of the sea.

ahhh hello anon! yes ahaha the dmbj dramas are certainly very confusing--because they keep switching the screenwriters/entire production team between dramas. huanrui did tlt1 (2015), tlt2 (2019), and the sequel to tlt2 (2021). they're also technically the production company for un (2020), but linghe did like all the directing/casting/writing so its significantly different in tone and quality from the other dramas huanrui produced. npss (dmbj author) did sha hai (2018) and tltr (2020), with sha hai being in collab with linghe, so you can see lots of parallels with un and shared cast. (gonna add that i dont know much about the m9 because that’s not what im personally interested in, so i’m only going by stories with wu xie & the iron triangle.)

unfortunately, the dramas pretty have no continuity as a result of all the weird shit and multiple studios doing different dramas and messy stuff going on behind the scenes. the author's production company currently has all the rights back for filming future dramas, which is......imo, a good thing for book fans who love the author but a 😬 thing for book fans who like the original story more than what the author is now doing with it. I'll uh avoid saying too much opinion stuff though so no more on that 😅

that aside! yes 云顶天宫 “explore with the note” part 2......is the direct sequel to tlt2 and done by the same studio. unfortunately the writers are different and im not sure how much of the production team is the same either. idk how much you know about the novels so brief summary here--for the chinese version, the main story has 9 parts split among 8 books (though the official eng tls have each part being a different book) with some important content being as follows:

official eng title “cavern of blood zombies” (first time wx goes into a tomb, first t3j meeting)

official eng title “angry sea, hidden sands” (xisha seabed tomb, introduce a-ning)

official eng title “bronze tree of death” (bronze tree in qinling, wx & lao yang solo adventure)

official eng title “palace of doom” (heavenly palace on the clouds, introduce bronze gate)

official eng title “deadly desert winds” (golmud, introduce hei xiazi, desert, rainforest, tamutuo)

official eng title “graveyard of a queen” (the rest of that arc, wu sanxing & xie lianhuan reveal, jade meteorite, amnesiac xiaoge and escape, sanshu vanishes for good--also i think the official eng tl covers a couple chapters of the beginning of the next part too)

阴山古楼 (searching for xiaoge’s memories in banai, miluotuo cave, i think introduction of wu erbai)

邛笼石影 (auction/hotel iron triangle fight, introduce xiao hua & xiuxiu, wx & xh on the mountains alone while pz & xg go with granny huo)

finale (rescue from zhang family mansion, changbai mountain goodbye, 10 years promise)

after the main story are the main sequels:

zang hai hua (tibetan sea flower; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie a few years after xiaoge has entered the gate, searching to understand xiaoge’s past

sha hai (tomb of the sea; unfinished & abandoned) covers wu xie’s plan to wipe out the wang family, after zhh

chongqi (reunion: the sound of the providence) covers wu xie’s lung disease and how he recovers from that, set after they pick up xiaoge again from the bronze gate. thunder city and everything.

灯海寻尸&万山极夜 (still updating on wechat) don’t worry about this one since it’s still a WIP lol

btw between sha hai and chongqi there’s also ten years later (a short story) that covers how wu xie and pangzi pick up xiaoge from the bronze gate and take him home

the dramas Do Not Connect To Each Other At All, which the exception of tlt2 & tlt2 pt2 somewhat, but they go in this order:

盗墓笔记 / the lost tomb 1 (2015): covers part 1 but with major OCs and filler, and includes the auction scene from part 8 for some reason, so introduces xiao hua early.

怒海潜沙&秦岭神树 / the lost tomb 2 (2019) technically “explore with the note”: covers parts 2 & 3 but with major OCs and filler, introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu (and hei xiazi briefly) early. last couple episodes also cover the beginning of part 4. not a direct sequel to tlt1 despite being done by the same studio.

云顶天宫 / heavenly palace on the clouds (2021) technically also “explore with the note”: covers part 4 with major OCs and filler (and the same changes carrying over from tlt2). some episodes are identical to the last couple episodes of tlt2. works as a direct sequel only if you ignore the last couple episodes of tlt2 that take place in the snowy mountains. (those episodes of tlt2 were filmed after this drama was filmed, and im still not sure why they dragged the wu xie and xiaoge from tlt2 back to changbai mountain to film those episodes.)

终极笔记 / ultimate note (2020): covers parts 5-8 with minor OCs and minimal filler, also introduces xiao hua & xiuxiu early. the only adaptation that resembles its source material most of the time.

沙海 / tomb of the sea (2018): covers the second sequel with major OCs and filler. includes some bits from zhh and the short story “three days of silence”.

重启之极海听雷 / the lost tomb reboot (2020): covers third sequel with major OCs and filler.

in addition there is the prequel series mystic nine (2016) and side movies for the dramas that the author produced. there is also a single standalone movie--time raiders (2016) that is....well it’s. very strange. it’s fully subbed on youtube if you’re interested?

the best way to watch the dramas is to assume each one is its own self-contained AU set along different points of the dmbj timeline because even the dramas the author himself worked on don’t have continuity LOL (and with the exception of ultimate note & sha hai most of the time, also assume most characters are pretty OOC from the novels).

i uh regret to inform you though, that ultimate note will not be getting a sequel unless the author magically decides to not care about making money anymore and sells the rights to film the finale to linghe or something ^^;;;; it’s....unfortunate bc un is the most highly-rated dmbj adaptation on douban by A Lot, but it’s an adaptation that the author had literally nothing to do with whatsoever.

more information on some of the side movies/stage plays/manhua/donghua here.

summaries of the main novel stories (currently through zhh) here.

edited mtl (some of which has apparently been looked over by native cn speakers) of the novels following where official eng tls end here. (there are many scattered extras as well.)

you can get the official eng tl books/ebooks on amazon or elsewhere(?), but if you have problems purchasing them or like you just dont wanna support amazon or something, dm me off anon. (also i dont want to be mean but frankly the official tls are kinda bad too ^^;;;)

a rough timeline (spoilers galore) for the dmbj novels here. (fair warning im not 100% sure how accurate all of this is--they put three days of silence as 1991 but looking at the info in zhh, it seems like it should have been before the 1950s...but it’s more than fine as a general overview.)

anyway i hope that was helpful in some way? dmbj is a Very Confusing thing to get into ahahaha, one of my twitter mutuals has made a few carrds if you think they might be helpful: book, dramas (slightly out of date bc it says heavenly palace hasn’t aired yet), ultimate note (got its own carrd by virtue of being the only adaptation aside from sha hai sometimes that most og book fans acknowledge lol ^^;;;)

also anon if anything wasn’t clear or if you had more questions feel free to ask again sorry ahahaha im kinda tired rn @.@ 

[shijiujun]

it’s not a lie when people say you get a serotonin boost from seeing stores ship your purchases out and these are on their way

1. First batch MDZS manhuas

2. My huge ass pressure cooker for FOOOOD (not that I cook much I got it for my mom so she can cook more easily)

3. My recent Taobao purchase with a gazillion earrings and accessories and dumb stamps

4. Shipping not involved but when an artist you commissioned goes I’m almost done with your piece 😭

5. Trapped Interview Logbook and Manga 😭

6. 花西子 engraved lipsticks that I ordered two weeks ago LIKE FINALLY THEY SHIPPED IT

Now all I need to wait for is like the second batch of manhua and the DMBJ OST set ahhhhh my lovelies please come to me soon

[taomubiji]

The Iron Triangle in the Restart Comic

[foxofninetales]

Official art from the DMBJ Reunion manhua

[unforth]

Alright instead of rageposting about white people perpetuating racism problems in cnovel/cdrama fandoms I've channeled my feels into cleaning up some shit I've been doing a bad job at maintaining and feeling horribly guilty about for months or even years. This is probably a healthier use of my current "fuck it." So, for reference, I've:

deleted the kink meme part of the DMBJ kink meme on AO3. This means that the prompts and sign ups and claims are now gone (I'm sorry I didn't give people time to save their prompts, but the reason I didn't do this months ago was that it had many steps and I was being useless about DOING those steps and as I said in the intro paragraph, I'm now at "fuck it" and like. if I can't do it "the right way" I'm today just breaking and doing it "the wrong way" and here we are). The collection and the ten stories in it still exists and anonymity and such are still maintained for people who wanted it, but new prompts and new fills cannot be submitted.

ditto the above for the kink meme part of the SPN kink meme on AO3. The prompts and sign ups and claims are now gone. I also removed myself administrating the Tumblr, though the other two people involved (fpwoper and envydean) do still have access. I realized belatedly that I really should have offered to just leave and let them have it but, again, today is apparently "fuck it" day which means I'm not thinking through the ramifications of my actions which has resulted in some bad fandom citizenry behavior on my part, and again, I truly do apologize. (I've offered to help them reconstruct the challenge part if either of them wants to run it; fpwoper has already said no, I'll see what envydean says and I'll apologize profusely even more and do what I can do fix things if envydean DOES want to take over and make it active again). The collection and the stories written for it still exist; that's about 40 works. Thanks to everyone who participated.

I left @saawek's Star of Solitude event, which I helped run a year and a half ago. Saawek hasn't really been active on Tumblr, but hun if you see this it's nothing at all about you or TGCF I'm just pulling back from things that even seeing them in my blog list has been causing me stress on the daily.

I formally announced that I'll be consolidating @zhenhunartreblogs and @dmbjartreblogs in @cnovelartreblogs, and I've posted to that effect in all three blogs. If you want Zhenhun/Guardian and DMBJ art content from my sideblogs, unfollow the old blogs and follow at cnovelartreblogs, and just black list fandoms you're not interested in - that's the whole reason I tag everything.

I deleted another side blog I haven't been using.

I'm considering deleting @memesforwriters, which I only update maybe once a month, and honestly just typing all this up has I think tipped me over into "fuck it" and I'm going to delete that too. I expect I'll instead reblog relevant memes to the @duckprintspress account, since I have to maintain that regardless.

My last remaining completely inactive Tumblr sideblog is where I'd posted on translated chapter the 2ha manhua. I really would like to be doing more work like that, though hell if I know when I'll have time; I renamed that blog to @unforthfantranslations, and I have vague hopes to translate more of 2ha and to tackle Lie Huo Jiao Chou (which I've never read any version of and would like to). But tbh I probably won't manage any progress on any of that until the fall.

Nothing like a pile of grief to make me say "I'm done feeling guilty about this stuff, like is too short, fuck it I'm gonna make these changes I've been waffling about for ages."

P. S. I opened another window to check how exactly I'd renamed the translation blog and while I had it opened I decided on a compromise with memesforwriters, which is that I'm exporting it, and THEN I'll delete it. And I DMed the Destiel Harlequin mods that I'm done and think we should shut it down. And I spotted a couple Discord servers I'm going to leave.

So yeah. that's the mood today in a (rather large and overly wordy) nutshell.

Apparently when I said yesterday that I'd be quiet, I failed to take into account how I ACTUALLY process grief. In my defense, this is only the...fourth?...time someone I really care about has died in my entire life. (counts of...Arthur, Gil, my grandfather, yeah that's three...of course other people I've cared about have died but no one who I loved and who I felt "I wish I had more time with this person." Like...I wish I'd had more time with Belle but I didn't love her...yeah I'm just babbling now I'm sorry I'm like this today.)

ETA: okay I just left like 6 Discord servers I haven't been using, too. There's only one I'm still like "maybe I shouldn't..." but I know a lot of people in that server and if I really want back in I can ask for invite.

[rigelmejo]

Things Read 2023

I thought it'd be kind of fun to do a little collage of some of the things read in 2023. Because pictures entice and maybe one of these will look interesting to you, and maybe I'll just feel slightly more motivated the next time I try to read something.

First row: Easiest novels to read, I highly recommend if you're a beginner. 秃秃大王, 大林和小林, and 笑猫日记 (any book in this series).

Second row: also fairly easy, though maybe not for total beginners? (Unless you want). 小王子 (which was the first non-graded reader novel I read in chinese, and in retrospect I wish I'd started with the books above instead... but this was still readable as a beginner, I read it in paper form to stop myself from looking words up and it was still a doable read), 盗墓笔记重启 （幽默漫画）a very cute domestic side stories for dmbj set during chongqi, extremely easy to read if you know the character names. 他们的故事/Their Story by Tan Jiu, a cute slice of life girls falling in love story, it's setting makes it quite easy to read.

Third row: manhua that are a bit harder, but still probably very readable if you're not looking to work hard and sink into a novel. 19天, bl and funny af, set in school so common vocab but the jokes land better as u understand more, I also love the art. 破云  1 and 2, they're kind of hard to read in that this manhua has a page just for niche word definitions in the front, but it's easier to read than the novel it's based on. I thought it was a fun way to enjoy the story while I waded much more slowly through the novel version. Similarly, I've been reading the 烈火浇愁 manhua (not pictured) on and off since I can get further in the manhua than the novel before running out of steam. There's a lot of manhua on the Bilibili Comics app, and that's definitely an option if you're into manhua too if you like a novel premise but aren't quite ready to tackle the novel (or want to check out the manhua too). Also, sometimes on bilibili.com you can find videos of manhua with voice acting and music, which can be nice.

Fourth row: some novels I'm still in progress with lol. I read 盗墓笔记 books 1, 2, and half of 3 in 2023. I'm continuing along, and maybe eventually I'll get to sha hai. If you plan to read/watch more in the tomb raiding or supernatural genre anyway, I highly recommend reading. dmbj is not that hard to read, new words usually pop up early and then are repeated enough that you learn them within a few chapters, which makes the following chapters easier and easier. By the time I was through book 1, I switched from looking up unknown words to looking up no words and just guessing from context and it went fine. npss also writes in an easy style to read once you get used to a few wordings/slang. A lot of the words I learned from dmbj were helpful with other supernatural genre stuff I read, since I like to read that kind of stuff. 撒野, both harder than I thought it'd be and easier. It is very doable of a read as far as following the main idea of the plot, after you've read a few other novels (like row 1) or gotten comfortable with daily life words. It does some beautiful stuff though with the writing style, and detail, that's more noticeable upon re-reads. I've restarted this novel like 4 times because each time I picked it up again my reading skill had improved, and the writing felt different upon reading. If you can watch chinese shows with chinese subtitles you can read this without looking words up, but if you do encounter unknown words this was a novel I found the unknown words were frequently useful and worth learning. I'd say it's very approachable, it's just the chapters are quite long so it's always a painful reminder of how slow my reading speed is. It's about two teenage guys who meet and fall for each other, and it's also about their families and personal struggles and very character focused which I love. After this novel, I plan to check out the other novels by this author. And of course, still, 镇魂. Look, I keep reading the whole first arc, then taking a break, then re-reading the whole first arc. I need to stop being a perfectionist about understanding and catching every detail, and just move forward. I've read my print version about 2 times to the end of the sundial arc, and the web version about 2 times. I've yet again reached the end of the sundial arc as of December 2023, and hopefully I just move forward at this point. I wont say it's an 'easy' read, but I will say I picked up so much of my initial reading vocabulary from this and Tian Ya Ke, that priest's preferred writing vocabulary and particular way of phrasing sentences is more familiar to me than any other author's. So now I have a much easier time reading priest's other novels. And in the case of Zhen Hun, I know 98% of the words more or less on any given page. So yes, it's a bit silly I keep combing over to try and understand more details. (In my defense, I've been combing over the AUDIO my last read through, to try and get my listening vocabulary comprehension closer to my reading vocabulary level - I figured it was a good novel to do this with since I know nearly every word reading-wise in the sundial arc at this point). Anyway... when will I finish reading Zhen hun? Ask me when the last official english translation book is published. Because I'm waiting to read the english until I finish it in chinese first. So no doubt when the english is totally out I'll probably rush through anything I didn't finish so it's easier for me to compare. (You'd think I'd do that for Sha Po Lang and... lol you're not wrong... that's why I haven't started reading SPLs official english translation yet... I want to dig out my chinese print book and compare). Tldr: Zhen hun is one of the easier priest books to start with, all things considered. Or Tian Ya Ke. I started with both, and they're still easier reads to me than Dage and Sha Po Lang and Can Ci Pin.

Special mention:

I also read 2 pingxie fanfictions, 半夜衣寒 and 寒舍 by 夏灬安兰. The first story is shorter by far, both are around as easy to read as dmbj or a bit easier, and they're supernatural au in everyday life so a lot of the words are applicable to either the real world, or to books in genres like dmbj.

I also read/watched many a voice-acted manhua video on bilibili over the last year. Bilibili algorithm recommends me tons of bl, and supernatural mystery stuff, so I'd click on manhua compilation videos when bored and use the voice acting speed to get myself to read faster than I would if I were just reading the manhua in silence. I found a pretty cool horror manhua, but upon making this post I checked bilibili and the compilation I saved was deleted. If I find it again I'll post a link. It was a college student who just moved to the city, and he meets this ancient guy who may be a demon/guardian sort of thing, and the city is just full of haunting and awful deaths and misfortune going on. It was both scary and full of comedy, which was fun.

[dmbjartreblogs]

From “Grave Robbers’ Chronicles” on Bilibili. You can read the official translation, legally and for free, here!

>>> your daily dose of Xiaoge being a badass, brought to you today by the DMBJ manhua.

[gathered-pieces]

#WHEN WU XIE IS LITERALLY RIGHT THERE SJSJKSKALA#DMBJ#THE LOST TOMB REBOOT#XIAOGE#LIU SANG#ok so i LOVE the chongqi manhua cause SO MUCH of it is this energy#xiaoge's his usual self but like he's just constantly doing wu xie-centric helpful things like kidnapping santa to give wu xie christmas#presents. going to the moon cause wu xie wants moon cakes. cutting wu xie's phone in half cause some ppl sent wu xie messages#that upset him ToT#and like. xiaoge's just like???? i have no use for a fan but if u wanna help go do something for wu xie#meanwhile wu xie IS xiaoge's biggest fan and xiaoge is really happy/conflicted about it#in the early days SUPER conflicted cause he adored wu xie but was afraid wu xie was gonna get killed trying to help him#and then just got real fond cause wu xie's irresistable#xiaoge's like. by all means be my fan but u gotta like wu xie too#also im mysterious im the night HOW did i even get a fan#i got wu xie but wu xie's WEIRD and a monster magnet have u SEEN HIM#like i GET why his ass clung onto me. but other ppl??? whats UP#also i still remember when liu sang was gonna let pangzi and wu xie die ToT#and xiaoge probs got frustrated at that#wu xie still saved liu sang later cause its WU XIE and then liu sang finally warmed up to him lol

thank you for this excellent addition @mejomonster

IM LOSING MY MIND