#same with Bu Chonghua and his definition of home

[foxghost]

This/last week’s read: Po Yun, Breaking Through the Clouds 1 & 2

All 1.6 million words. Po Yun (Breaking Through the Clouds) and Po Yun 2 (Swallowing the sea), by Huai Shang (817k) On jjwxc. I started reading them because I missed SCI, but Po Yun is a much more serious book with serious plot twists and no hypnosis/split personalities/genetic modification magic. Oh, and more whump. I mean these characters are basically hurt all the time. Constantly. A bonus: all your main characters are in their 30’s.

There’s a summary on novelupdates, but I’m going to give you an alternative summary:

International drug-trafficker King of Spades and the Gongzhou Police Organised Crime/drug trafficking division chief Jiang Ting were once childhood friends and are now caught in a game of cops and robbers cat and mouse and their love story ends in inevitable BE …

Okay, it’s not that, go get the actual summary from NU that ends in a nobody (bad) dies HE ending between Jiang Ting and Yan Xie.

(Rambling that is as spoiler-free as possible after cut, but to summarise, I’d give Po Yun 1 a 7/10 and Po Yun 2 a 10/10 recommended with some caveats for plot holes and warning for graphic descriptions of violence and gore)

Po Yun1: If this book was actually about the first story, 10/10, a very well-told tragedy that ends in a near perfect circle. As is, I’m not sure how to feel because it just felt so much like it should end in 雙愛雙殺 / “mutual love, mutual killing”, that even though it has told me it’s HE since the beginning it doesn’t feel right. Despite Jiang Ting’s insistence that he never loved SpadesK, he did … in the before times, and considering how much he hated him afterwards, he loved him a lot. I think most what made this book less enjoyable for me though is Yan Xie, who is basically your definition of male chauvinist (his nickname in the book is literally “straight man cancer”), and he touched the one squick I have … terrible personal hygiene.

Point form entirely unorganised thoughts (吐槽) :V below, mostly of my very twisted opinion, you’ve been warned

Every time I heard about Yan Xie’s “male hormones” smell I gagged a little because I’m pretty sure he stinks

No, wait, I don’t have to be pretty sure. The first time he lent his jacket to Jiang Ting he had to cover his nose and ask “when was the last time you did the laundry”

also, “wash your feet first thing when you get home or I really will avoid you” omg

Yan Xie: do I look like i have time to change my clothes <- in 3 days

why do you even like him the only thing good about him is that he loves you a lot

most of the words that come out of his mouth (especially towards women) are toxic and just THE WORST

Literally no woman in the novel is surprised that he’s tall, handsome, rich, and is single in his 30’s

his mother: now that he’s this age all I ask is that he chooses someone younger than me

anyway that’s enough about Yan Xie I just had to tell someone after Jiang Ting (whom I love) chose to end up with makes face and points THAT

Meanwhile, the King of Spades is basically a more twisted Asami Ryuichi and how can I not love that fictionally

the king of spades gets a theme song (Young and Beautiful) and childhood episode with MC

Excuse me I have feels about the villain and the MC/villain ship way more than the canon ship orz

Half the plot is about antag trying to turn back time emotionally to see if things between Jiang Ting and himself could have turned out in any way differently

“all i wanted in his life was for you to kill me and then we die together” trope

He is well-dressed, cultured, polite, and utterly off his rocker, kills without blinking, but you know something

He leaves the torturing to Jiang Ting because he’s … probably better at it

Jiang Ting will pull off your fingernails and give you the death of 3000 cuts without batting an eyelash

I love Jiang Ting a regular amount

as mentions of Yan Xie’s lack of hygiene grew less frequent I admit he grew on me (and I guess I want a happy ending for Jiang Ting since he’s suffered enough) but only right up until Yan Xie SPEAKS AGAIN

on the mystery/drama/cases front, it’s good …

too much of the plotting of how convoluted the crimes are hinged on “antag is crazy you can’t explain the motivation of the crazy”

There are plenty of surprises, lots of side characters to get attached to, and come to think of it it’s the kind of happy ending that’s really 地道, nobody (on the good guy side) dies.

Onto Po Yun 2:

MC (Wu Yu) is a contradiction of a killer cinnamon bun (do we still say that? why don’t we still say that?) anyway he can go from polite and sweet and courteous and shy about speaking in public to killer hawk jumping out of the 8th floor window using obstacles to slow his descent to stab target in the throat in 5 seconds flat

Code name “The Painter”, as in “Painted Skin”, cross-border master undercover cop, but he’s pretty to the point of standing out (this is used as a plot point later)

ML (Bu Chonghua, everytime I see his name 蔥花 “chopped green onions” floats across my brain) seems pretty normal at first glance, but he’s “living for vengeance”

MC and ML have childhood background story while MC and villain does not (thank you)

the cases are all related, and they make sense for the most part

MC’s backstory and the final reveal is a bit of a stretch and the writer knows it (and apologises)

But overall, very well plotted cases that takes its time unwinding and doesn’t get explained all at once.

however, some tropes recycled wholesale from book 1 meant that they did not fool me for a single second.

WHUMP and lots of hurt, not so much comfort. These people are wounded so often they really shouldn’t be walking around

I literally can’t tell you anything without giving half the story away, so I won’t — I’m just going to say “read it you won’t regret it”

2 is a better book than 1. Both use the same kind of ship dynamic — MC is evasive and hiding something, ML is full of love but know not to trust entirely because MC is evasive, eventually MC come to realise that “even if I’m evil this man will love me anyway” and then happily ever after. Whether the resulting relationship is healthy is … up for debate, but I’m here for all the car chases / explosions / jumping off buildings / dealing with life and death situations / nearly dying every chapter or two. Come for excitement, nobody dies, and happy wedding endings … ignore the plot holes and inconsistencies.

If Huai Shnag writes a third installment — likely, some ppl are left alive for reasons — I will drop all the points on them. This was totally worth my time. If you buy the jjwxc version, go hunt down the uncensored chapters, there is one smut scene each that got cut.