• Nov 2019

I've been reading 淮上/Huai Shang's novel, 提灯看刺刀 (very bad translation: lit. Light A Lamp to Watch the Piercing of the Knife) for the past week - and I'm so excited to have finally finished it!! I can't wait to write my thoughts on it.

Given the standards of an incredibly slow and easily distracted reader, I think I've pretty much inhaled this book over just a week. (Though it's really not that long a novel, mid-length, 60 chapters... I know... there are people who can finish this in a day lol) -- I realise I do well with character-driven drama but procedural/action/case-based mystery stories often stump me. (It took me close to a year to finish the Guardian novel - half of the story is character-focused which is when my interest is piqued then the other half is when cases happen and I get bored.)

Pretty much went into this blind, because the synopsis was so short and ambiguous, except having some sort of inexplicable faith in HS as an author. I didn't even know what "太子党" was at that point of time, but after this novel, I learnt a new term haha. I haven't even heard of this novel at all until I chanced upon it, it wasn't even HS's most popular novel, but I also have read people saying good things about it after digging intentionally.

So pretty much everything about it which came my way was unexpected, but it turned out to be everything I've been attempting to look for in melodramatic love/hate lakorn synopses which seemed promising but failed in execution... :P

What were actually shocking to me about this novel was, being a Chinese bl webnovel, 1) how explicitly sexual (which was in the problematic way - explicit sex scenes, dub-con/non-con); 2) how explicitly political this novel is (use of actual city names like Beijing which directly draws connection to how corrupted the government is in related of the story). I only truly got active on c-net from 2013 onwards, but I could already feel the tightening grip of censorship over the years, to the point it's almost spartan now. Can't help but feel cnet/cmedia must have been a lot more open back in 2010 and before. No wonder this novel had been banned on its official platform.

The overall story is simple, nothing new. Chu Ci's only remaining family left in the world - his foster family - were killed by Han Yue's older brother Han Qiang, in a hit-and-run accident. HY was the second son of a strong and prestigious military family, which belonged to an entire network of powerful political families of Beijing, associated with deep-seated corruption, nepotism, and oppression. This also led to HQ's misdeeds being covered up by the family, and CC's foster family died a tragic and silenced death of injustice. CC lived with torment and guilt, but never contemplated revenge until HY met him by chance and fell love at first sight with him.

Being unloved by his family since young and also burdened with the reputation of his family, HY was painfully inept with social interactions outside of his usual circle and abused an uninterested CC into a relationship. Meanwhile, CC realised that he could make use of HY to get close to the network of social class he would otherwise never have a chance to touch base with in his life, then take his revenge. In the process of the relationship (which HY one-sidedly believed was romantic and sexual while CC sees it purely a long game of revenge), CC lost all hope on himself and life, then finally slaughtering the people around HY one by one, in cold blood. That sense and consequences of betrayal from the person HY (thought he) loved the most, was eventually unleashed on HY. To some extent, HY brought it upon himself. These two were doomed for this ordeal together or they just better off never knowing each other at all.

Honestly I'm never going to forgive and excuse HY at all for the atrocities he had committed on CC despite being largely accepting of the ending, but fortunately, this was also a story of growth and character development. I sometimes wondered what would have been of CC if he had not decided to bite through it and stay by HY's side for the sake of revenge? Either way, CC had been completely destroyed since that day he met HY, physically, emotionally, mentally, by HY and his plot for revenge.

But what definitely kept me going and hooked despite such problematic themes and elements was how HS was largely firm and clear in her stance of morality and her ability in building complexity and tension of the characters and plot. HY's abuse towards CC had been repeatedly condemned by CC himself, HY's dad, and also his own social circle. While HY's problematic behaviour was understood through his childhood, background - and his mental illness was acknowledged (he accepted therapy and the illness was just normalised) - but those were never used as excuses. Fortunately, HY was actually largely rooted in morality - he had always been against the grave corruption in his social class + him having a genuine yearning for love, and also eventually, having received character development - which helped with his redemption ultimately. At the same time, the narrative was deepened by how the unfolding of events was also a web entangled with CC's personal decisions and motivations. They were simply a sum of everything had happened before and cast on them helplessly. If this had all been a series of attacks solely thrown on CC in which he had completely no agency, then it would have been a lot more distasteful.

Essentially, this story is a story about the selfishness of humanity - how people are forced to let go of it, without discounting the fact that it still remains to be fundamental human nature. It repeatedly talked about the tyrannical oppression by the upper class, which is pretty much a crystallised image of the society's most selfish people. Power-hungry, greedy, hypocritical people who can do anything to defend for their own wellbeing at the cost of others (the commoners). HY's selfishness lies in his desire for love. To make up for his absence of love since young, he forced and hurt CC into loving himself, but finding out that it would never work at all. Papa Han's selfishness lies in his motivation to protect his family and reputation, so much that he attempted to hurt CC. But he realised that his love for HY and his own humanity meant that he should let CC go. Mama Han's selfishness lies in her unhealthy love for HQ, so much that she could destroy anything in her way, even including her other biological son. She had to learn to let go the hard way through losing her favourite son. Pei Zhi was selfish, he wanted to help CC because he loved CC. Hou Yu was selfish, he wanted to expose his aunt and uncle's corruption because he wanted to save himself - not to actually just to save CC. Even CC, he was selfish himself to some extent. I believed he embarked on the journey of revenge to some extent to make himself feel better about the unfair death of his foster family, as much as I supported him. Though at the end of the day, he realised he pushed himself deeper into the abyss.

CC and HY are an incredibly dysfunctional pair that, till now, I'm not sure if I would call the feelings between them, "love".

HY's feelings for CC at their very first meeting was mainly lust and possessiveness - which spiralled very quickly into a completely toxic relationship. I do believe HY's feelings did slowly turned into something much healthier after he went for therapy, but there was ultimately still a part of his feelings which were more selfish than selfless for CC, when he desperately kept CC from dying against his own wishes. No doubt he had projected all his yearning for love on CC.

Meanwhile, I seriously do have to applaud how mentally strong CC was for being against HY for most of the story, only until towards the end of the story, after HY got his character development then did CC soften his stance towards HY. But is it love? I hardly think so. Though I do agree there must be a sort of special feeling CC has towards HY, that HY was the only person who would be so intensely feeling and caring for CC that he opens HY up and be the only person who "loves" CC so intensely and unabashedly. It was something CC would never have felt his whole life, with absent parents, a dead foster family and a lukewarm social network due to his aloof personality. CC was also a fundamentally kind person that he felt sorry towards HY for murdering HQ, blaming himself at the end of the day instead of others, and he was such a simple person and HY was the only one there for him the whole time after CC had suffered his whole life - so I could see these factors which surpasses "love" or Stockholm Syndrome coming into play of why CC ended up settling down with HY after all. In fact, CC repeatedly stating that he never hated/held a grudge for HY made me believe that CC had never loved HY - despite what the finale chapter implied. (No hatred without love, you know?) (I also don't believe characters have to make flawlessly moral decisions, and I think CC have also done his best.)

There is only an appropriate way to sum up their relationship, which is that they were definitely destined to have their lives intertwined with each other forever - for better or for worse.

They had their share of hurt/comfort, particularly towards the end of the story, after HY found out about CC's past, confronted him, but eventually still decided to fight against everything he had been raised to believe in just to keep CC alive and by his side (which was deeeeelisssssh, boooooy). In fact, it was quite interesting to see how HY and CC behaves with each other in a normal* domestic settings (*by that I mean when CC wasn't coerced lol). CC is SHAMELESSLY a human disaster at housework and everything and makes HY do all the dirty job. If these two had met and fell in love under normal circumstances, CC would totally be the one bullying HY like a slave, lmao.

That being all said, I do think there are things about the writing which could still be improved. Are there things about HY's characterisation which still gets me iffy? Yes. How about Long Ji Wei the Deus ex machina? Of course. The presence of LJW in the story was kinda jarring tbh, but I guess HS would do anything to keep her stories a HE. The last few chapters were a little less believable, like CC's recovery from final stage cancer and his pretty abrupt positive feelings for HY. There were definitely have been better ways to wrap it up, but I think I had been largely satisfied with what the story had given me so it didn't bother me as much.

It was a generally very addictive read and the thought that I'm not sure if I would ever be able to find another story which satisfy and hit all the right notes as this story does in the category of melodrama kinda pains me.

I'm going have to read 破云 after this because the story apparently takes place before 刺刀 before CC's foster family was killed. It was CC in his pure and happier times.