Review: 泾渭情殇 Jing Wei Qing Shang, or Clear and Muddy Loss of Love by 请君莫笑 Please Don't Laugh

This turned from a casual read into my favorite book. I think I managed to avoid the major spoilers.

The river Luo acts as a natural moat, separating the two kingdoms, Jing of the north and Wei of the south. The war of the grass plains made an orphan of the Prince of the Grass Plains and after 10 years of preparation and planning, it is time to get revenge. 

How do I even go about reviewing my favorite book of all time? Very carefully, and over an extended period of time. This sort of took me 4 months to read, I started it in June of last year and just read a chapter or two at a time casually until it started to get more intense. Towards the end I did nothing but read this book day in and day out. Its over a million words, its definitely the longest read of my life at this point. It even sort of ruined shorter books for me and made me addicted to books that have a good few hundred chapters.

This story begins in the grass plains, the birth of Qiyan Agula, a 'prince' who is really a baby girl, but has to be presented as a boy as her mother, a woman of the Wei Kingdom, would not be sealed as the Khatun of the Chengli Tribe unless her first child was a boy. This was to be kept a secret from everyone, even the prince until she has a concept of gender and why she must live as a boy. The story progresses through Agula's childhood, through her becoming sword brothers with her best friend and acquiring her beloved horse, Flowing Fire, by her natural affinity for horsemanship, and a proposal for an arranged marriage to the princess of the neighboring Tuba tribe, Nagsi Jiya.

I love this opening, it sets the atmosphere and tone of the story and paints a picture of Agula's character; she is deeply devoted to her family and what is best for the tribe and that remains the center of her moral compass. Her and her sister, Qiyan Nomin, are very protective of each other and Agula has a deep connection to her sworn brother, Guqi Bayin. 

This proposal for an arranged marriage is where the conflict arises, and the beginning of the end for Qiyan Agula. This marriage is proposed by the Khagan of the Tuba tribe, Nagsi Erihe, for when Agula and Jiya are a few years older in what he sees as a mutually beneficial alliance with the Chengli tribe. But Agula's father, the Khagan of the Chengli tribe, declines the proposal. In anger, Nagsi Erihe colludes with the Wei kingdom to bring destruction to the grass plains. Without Erihe's help, the Wei kingdom would not have found the way to cross the river into the northern territories, or even known of their existence. The Wei kingdom invades and Agula is sent away on Flowing Fire to find a place to weather the battle, but is then cornered and forced to jump into the Luo river or else be captured. 

Half drowned and on death's doorstep, Agula is rescued by a mysterious woman who hides her face behind a mask. After a long recovery, Agula insists on going back home. The masked person allows her to go, sending her people to escort her, and tells Agula to come back if she wishes to seek revenge. After seeing the ruin, The ten year old Agula returns and asks the master to teach her the way of revenge. "Revenge became her singular goal in life."

At 14, After years of studies and training, Qiyan Agula becomes Qi Yan, frail scholar from the Jin province, who progresses through a series of imperial exams and wins herself a reputation of being an accomplished scholar and also a friend in Gongyang Huai. She is awarded with two firsts and one flower and the title the Flower Seeker for her accomplishments in her exams. With this title also comes an engagement to the emperor's one legitimate daughter, the daughter of her enemy: Nangong Jingnu. 

This arc gives insight to all the changes that Agula had to go through in order to become the person she had to become to successfully pull off her revenge plot against those that murdered her family. She throws away her identity entirely, with no hope of ever coming out of this whole, or even alive. In this buildup, there are also segments of insight to the innerworkings of the Nangong family. Though not the methods that Qi Yan had intended for her infiltration, the wedding did allow her to get close to the Nangong family as intended for her and the masked person's schemes to unfold. 

Qi Yan and Jingnu's marriage was a formality, neither treating the other as a partner aside from in show for public appearances, for many years. This is partially because of how young both Qi Yan and Jingnu are at the time of their marriage, and partially because neither party wanted to be married but Nangong Jingnu had filial duties to comply to and Qi Yan needed an in. This creates a complex relationship between the two, definitely one of the most beautiful and messy relationships I've ever encountered in fiction. 

As the plot unfolds and the Qi Yan-Masked Person revenge attempts are put into action, Jingnu becomes a pillar within Qi Yan's moral compass. In some ways she helps Qi Yan do what is right, in other ways she gets in the way. Nangong Jingnu started out naive and sheltered, she was a literal child when she got married at 14, but she grew up fast. Her life and her circumstance made her wise but also cold at times. Jingnu is a character that I did not like much at first, but grew very attached to. 

I love this story because a) the characters are complex and have depth, even the side characters give you reason to care about them and their wellbeing. b) the unpredictability. The planning done by Qi Yan and the masked person lays out a straightforward plot path but many things go awry and Qi Yan has to improvise or completely alter the original plan. Some parts are completely predictable, others are not, which makes it all unpredictable. It's lovely. c) the tragedy, the tragedy of self, of morals, and of characters. 

The only thing that I wish to be different was the ending, it came up very rushed and I wish so badly that PDL would have fleshed out the climax and falling action. It is sad looking at the author notes and seeing her thinking it is a total flop and having to assure the audience "There's a happy ending I promise just wait!!" When it is so beloved in the English baihe fandom. I think this must be why the ending got rushed, her wanting to get it over with and focus on a story that would be received better. I think some plot threads could have been wrapped up better, because a few are left to vagueness, but overall the journey to get to the end made it forgivable.