Kamilė

maybe watch the anime first to see if its up to your taste, would recommend the novel over the manhua since it explains alot better than the manhua

Novel is better plot wise

I feel like both the manhua and the donghua fail to deliver certain emotions at times. Also I‘m pretty sure that you won’t really understand what’s going on without having read the novel so yeah, definitely do that. It‘s really good and I‘ve read it 3 times already

Definitely, read novel first and then come back to enjoy the manhua, definitely will give better experience

Also agree with what the person above me said about failing to deliver, especially the manhua

Novel is wayyyyyy better

Omg how?? im so bad at reading fantasy novels and their names are chinese so i confuse them a lot, i read the novel but i still don't understand it

The facial expressions just don't give as much justice as the novel. In the donghua I think it was good to an extent. But the manhua was lacking sm when it came to despair and anger especially. I especially kind of dislike it just for that reason, because this arc was where Xie Lian's character (and maybe Hua Cheng as well) are shown multi dimensional. This is where they both are given a new side of themselves that we have never seen personally before.

For ex, at the beginning of tgcf when I started this completely blind and got to this arc, it really stunned me (in a good way) to see Xie Lian get angry and even snap back and despair. I used to think at the very beginning of tgcf that he was very kind (he is) but it was so nice to see him show a new side of himself, in a way that might make you think that hes acting out of character but in reality we just haven't seen that side of him yet. It made him so much more dimensional as a character, but the manhua really watered it down

Also what part is hard for you to read? Make sure you're not reading the translations of an MTL

Ohhh mb I didn't read the "names" part
It would be helpful to make a list while reading of the characters and maybe a description. That's what I always do tbh

For ex
Xie Lian (main character)
Hua Cheng (guy in red )

simple stuff like that will help a lot

Thats such a good idea thanks, i was having such a hard time with the names i couldn't fully get in it

YESS i loved the beginning of the novel bc it explains even better the rise and fall of Xie Lian, what i didnt understand was the whole mask thing and why he killed a king?? I don’t remember if it was a king sry, i also don't know if it was a MTL my bad

Trust me it'll grow on you after a while so don't lose hope Some ppl have multiple names but it's easier to get used to than you think so don't worry

MTL is machine translated and most of the times they will tell you. Normally if at the beginning it says like "translated by ____ group" or individual people's names, then it's most likely not a MTL. Also if the translations are wonky then you can tell. The one I read wasn't an MTL and you could definitely tell because the translations were perfect

Also as for why he killed the king, my memory is a bit fuzzy on that part but I will explain in the comment below

Quick run down of that flashback arc (and of why he killed the king/Lang Qianqiu's father)

This is gonna be long lol

*Btw Lang Qianqiu is the heavenly official guy who's accusing him*

So basically after Xianle (his kingdom) had fallen he hid his identity and became anonymous. He was strolling and found young Lang Qianqiu being kidnapped and saved him, the king and queen being grateful and seeing his skills offered him to be Lang Qianqiu's Guoshi/teacher, he accepted while staying anonymous.

King and Queen both wanted peace between Xianle citizens and Yong'an (the new kingdom that had destroyed Xianle) and offered to protect them and gave the last of Xianle royalty titles (like prince An Le for ex. Btw hes not very important but uk. Xie Lian and Qi Rong, his cousin, are also Royalty.)

Obviously, Xie Lian is anonymous, his real name and origins unknown. Important for later. While the people complied to the king and queens wishes and kept moving forward with life, the Xianle royalty was different. Why would they just say yes and agree? They were stripped of their royal bloodline, what so good was a title? Ofc they were angry and wanted revenge.

So they pretended to comply. Prince An Le and Qi Rong both assembled a revenge plan where they would go on a murder spree at the royal banquet, which they did. On Lang Qianqiu's birthday which he was late to, being the sole survivor.

Xie Lian hadn't really wanted revenge at this time and period. He wanted Lang Qianqiu to keep believing what his mother and father taught him. That's why when everyone had died who shared the same peaceful beliefs, he thought, If Lang Qianqiu knew the truth then everything he had taught him would be a lie.

You see, Lang Qianqiu didn't know it was Xianle royalty who slaughtered his family, he thought it was the Guoshi Xie Lian of unknown origins. If he had let him keep believing that then he would not curse Xianle.

That was until Lang Qianqiu found out his identity. It gets a bit complicated there but he had to keep going with the lie. After all, prince An Le who slaughtered his family was his best "friend"

Anyway, this is getting long holy MXTX really went all out. I'm getting whiplash writing all this

Anyway, the reason he killed the king (he didn't know Xie Lian was also from Xianle, and royalty at that) was because he was most likely gonna die anyway and the king was angry at Xianle because of the slaughter. He said fuck peace, I declare war on the last of the Xianle citizens, Guoshi, go tell so and so to kill off every Xianle people

Ofc Xie Lian couldn't allow that to happen. He had to protect his people, maintaining peace and protect Lang Qianqiu and everyone else's beliefs. So he chose the best option which was to eliminate the king to stop a war. But sadly for him Lang Qianqiu walked in on him finishing him off. An Le and everyone else had already ran away so Xie Lian took full blame for the incident and ran


Hope this was helpful because my god this is a lot of complicated lore

OH MY GOD

Probably the longest comment I've EVER made

OMGG IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW ISJSJHS ILL REREAD THANK U FOR TAKING THE TIME TO EXPLAIN THIS 2 ME tyyyyyy

Oh then it wasnt a MTL

Im gonna have to reread all of it what site do u recommend me? I have no idea where to read novels

DW

Definitely download an epub reader (I have the one on Playstore called exactly that) and download it from somewhere. I'll check who mine was translated by if I can

It was translated and worked on by multiple people but here

Translated by
Suika @YummySuika Ryuu @RyuuseiKuma, Lianyin @fxcangji

You might be able to find a file to download if u look it up with these names

If u wanna stick to a website where u can read it without downloading it, then I'm sorry but I can't help since I download all of my stories and the sights I get them from isn't a reading sight if that makes sense (only allow downloading) (￣∇￣")

HELL YEAH. I‘LL SAY THIS OVER AND OVER AGAIN: IF YOU GUYS REALLY WANT TO GET INTO TGCF READ. THE. NOVELS. seriously though, the novels are so incredibly well-written it’s INSANE. it gives you a way better perspective on the plot overall, while you can still enjoy the poetic and breathtaking writing. I’ve never been a big fan of the donghua nor am I a big fan of the manhua. In my opinion, they lack the different emotions of the characters, something that only you alone can imagine in your head while reading the books. Don’t get me wrong, I’m SO grateful that it got diff adaptions, but these are more like extras for me. It was a little difficult at first with understanding all the Chinese names but trust me, you’ll get used to it quickly

they're both tan cuz they live on the countryside