22 [Kunlun] (1)

[Kunlun] was by the author Feng Ge. His writing style was based on realism, practicality, emotion, and historical accuracy. He had a good understanding of history, classical literature and ancient folk customs, which were all well integrated into his work.

This made the novels he wrote have a sense of historical weight and the vicissitudes of life. Feng Ge's pen was powerful and the language was simple but potent. His writing took into account the overall situation and the description of details. Grand but delicately woven, smooth but thrilling.

The main themes of his novels were the vicissitudes of life and taking into account chivalry and kindness.

It could be said that Feng Ge absorbed the advantages of many martial arts masters such as Jin Yong, Wen Ruian, Liang Yusheng, etc. Whilst at the same time, adding his own twist.

The story of [Kunlun] took place at the end of the Song Dynasty with the transition into the early Yuan Dynasty, the novel told the story of Liang Xiao a genius strategist and pugilist who's forced to put his prodigal ways behind him when he's drawn into the chaos of the changing times. The whole book was about a million words, the plot had its ups and downs and contained many elements, such as chivalry, love, hatred, family and country.

The whole work was full of spirit and intricate subjects such as astronomy, geography, mathematics, platoon arrangement and so on.

Before Jiang Cheng in his previous life went abroad, [Kunlun] was being serialized and was being published in the magazine: [Legends of Martial Arts]. At that time, Jiang Cheng was busy with his studies and had a lot of things to handle, but he still bought copies of [Legends of Martial Arts] every two weeks, just to catch up and follow [Kunlun] until its serialization was completed.

At that time, Jiang Cheng was really fascinated by [Kunlun]. In his view, although there were traces of Jin Yong and Gu Long in the book, although there were some negligible flaws, it was the best martial arts novel in recent years. The novel decisively abandoned the basic Shaolin, Wudang, Tang and Beggar sect settings that were overused in martial arts/ wuxia novels. The sect system and martial arts in [Kunlun] were completely anew.

The novel placed importance on the personal growth of characters and the value of life. Liang Xiao always appreciated the value and consequences of each life he took or saved, no matter the circumstances unlike a lot of other wuxia MC's.

Liang Xiao was closer to the image of a knight in the minds of young people nowadays. His obvious personality defects didn't drain his color, but made him feel more realistic and plausible.

Of course, [Kunlun] wasn't perfect, it had its criticisms. A widely criticized part of the book was when Liang Xiao attacked Xiangyang City, going against his sister's will.

He had led the Mongrol/Yuan Army to conquer Xiangyang after his sister was beaten to death by Song rebels.

Liang Xiao had lost his parents in childhood, and experienced multiple hardships. And despite his intelligence, he was prone to letting his emotions take over and disrupt his rationale.

So in order to gain his revenge, he actually stood on the side of the Mongols and helped them attack Xiangyang. Despite his dislike for killing and his brain telling him not to, he went to war on emotion and only when he saw Xiangyang razed to the ground and become the very definition of hell on earth, did he realise how big a mistake he had made. He had become like the very people he spat in disgust at, he had brought endless killing and suffering to the world.

Reading that section back in the day, Jiang Cheng had felt torn seeing how Liang Xiao reacted and took it.

Did Liang Xiao really do something wrong? In the eyes of the Song citizens,of course, it was a heinous crime. As rebels and soldiers of the Song Dynasty naturally they would. But they were among the same people calling for the death of the Yuan Dynasty and death of its supporters.

Maybe it was because he was young and feeling rebellious but Jiang Cheng at that time was annoyed at Liang Xiao's reaction. Why was he acting so down and out, he had got his revenge hadn't he, they had deserved it, had been his thoughts.

However, with the increase in age and experience, he had a new understanding and view of [Kunlun]. In fact, just like in the last line of the novel, as the fortune teller said, fame and fortune, grievance and hatred, were all illusory dreams of the world, in the end, they were worthless.

In any case, in his opinion, [Kunlun] was better than [Zhu Xian], so Jiang Cheng decided that he would write [Kunlun]!