The only Chapter

Ok, this might be a little long for a comment, but I really want to get my opinion out there.

The thing is, at least in my opinion, that Zhao Yanzi is pretty much the victim! And I don't mean that from the position of the story, but from the position of an author. And the reason for that is Xie Yujia.

That may sound like a very „biased" (I don't have a better word for this.) opinion right now, but please let me explain.

First of all, we have Zhao Yanzi, she is still a young girl and has a rather bad temper, and yes, she is a brat. I won't deny it, she is a brat. BUT her character is perfectly in line with her setting, more perfect than any other character actually. Actually, the ones responsible for her behavior are her parents, the reason being that they spoiled her rotten. She gets almost always what she wants from them and if not, at least until some time ago, she would get it from Zhao Kuo. And although her parents may not give it to her directly, they still won't prevent it. And that would be their responsibility as her parents.

Also, about her reckless behavior on fifth heaven and about wanting to go to the demon sea, her parents are actually responsible for that as well. She has always been protected and kept totally in the dark about anything that could even be remotely dangerous. So she could never build up any experience and build up a sense of danger. Even now she is, in a way, still protected by her overly strong cultivation technique and dharma treasure, so going around and robbing people on fifth heaven is more or less a game for her and she just doesn't realize the consequences.

Other than this, she is a very normal girl for her age. Still a little immature, not clear about her own emotions, etc.

But she is also a young girl that made a mistake and suddenly became the fiance of a total stranger! And to express her unwillingness she started to call him „Uncle". (And yes, I too don't like it, but I'm trying to be unbiased here.) And yes, she is acting pretty spoiled towards Hao Ren, BUT in a way that could also be seen as her treating him more like „family", because that is exactly how she is acting towards her family.

But at the same time, even though she starts to like him, she can't really stop calling him „uncle". There are two reasons for that, it may sound a little stupid, but she just is already used to it and it just became an unconscious habit, and such habits can be really hard to change. For that, she would need someone that tells her that she should stop doing that, and constantly at that. But nobody is doing that. At the same time, even though she might realize her own mistake, she can't really admit it because she is still a little immature. Its just like when you were the one who has eaten all the cookies when no one was looking and even though everyone knows who the culprit is you still can't admit it. I know, its not the best comparison, but that is just how it is. In fact, THAT phenomenon isn't something that is restricted by age or maturity, it's something that happens to everyone.

That's about it for Zhao Yanzi.

Now about Xie Yujia. (I'm seriously trying my best here to write this from an impartial point of view because, to be honest, I don't really like her that much. Comments in these […] are my own opinions.)

Actually, she should have had a pretty ordinary childhood, I can't really judge that because I'm not Chinese but what we know is this:

Her Parents where neither poor nor especially rich, probably still on the wealthier side.

And she had her „little big brother" who she had always been running after.

Then they got separated, but instead of forgetting about him [like a normal person would] she became [and yes this is the most fitting word in my vocabulary!] obsessed with that person to the point where she gave it her all to be the best in everything to be able to match that person who she doesn't even know who he is because he is surely even better than her. [Actually, I'm realizing right now how scary this actually is! I mean, isn't this how yandere's are born?]

In the end, she tells Hao Ren that she can't go out with him, because of her devotion for this „little big brother" of her's only to find out that it is Hao Ren and she happily falls in love with him. [Actually, I really wanted to see how she finds out that that „little big brother" is Huang Xujie or some other random a*shole, I think that scene would have been much more fun and also more realistic.]

This is the part where most people didn't like her in the beginning, and that for a good reason! The way she was introduced was way too forceful, they started to randomly run into each other or Xie Yujia started approaching him for rather unrealistic reasons. And when they realized that they were childhood friends, everything was perfect! This is more or less the type of „fateful meeting" that some people would also call „plot armor".

With this background story as a basis, Xie Yujia has become a perfect example for a typical „Mary Sue" character. Beautiful with almost no match, endlessly kind and tolerant, extremely intelligent and hardworking, the perfect housewife... In short, almost flawless. [To a point where it gets a little annoying] BUT only almost, she has one specific flaw, and that is her weak cultivation talent. But that isn't really a weakness as well because she became the disciple of one of maybe ten or so soul formation realm cultivators and even got a technique that can perfectly counter Hao Rens. [This is actually the one thing that seriously annoys me the most in this whole novel until now, even more than Hao Ren giving away everything!]

Now let me explain why the problem is Xie Yujia.

Its actually pretty simple, Xie Yujia got always portrayed as a „Mary Sue" with the disposition of an angel, always accepting and tolerating what Zhao Yanzi does without ever getting angry at her. Actually, I can't remember Xie Yujia ever getting angry in the whole story right now, neither has she ever done something even remotely „bad".

But now the author stands in front of a problem, to develop the relationship between Hao Ren, Zhao Yanzi, and Xie Yujia, a conflict is needed between Zhao Yanzi and Xie Yujia. But that is where the problem lies, Xie Yujia has always been way to „flawless" so it would be incredibly out of character if she were to suddenly provoke Zhao Yanzi, although this would be the fastest way to create the desired conflict since Yanzi is easy to provoke. For that reason, Zhao Yanzi has to be the one to provoke Xie Yujia, and that is where the problem continues. Zhao Yanzi has a rather provocative personality as is and Xie Yujia has always been tolerating it, so she has to behave in very extreme ways, more than usual, which in turn makes everyone hate her.

So basically, the author needed to make a choice, making one of the two characters act „out of character". But while it would be extremely obvious and weird if it is Xie Yujia because she is normally „flawless", if it is Zhao Yanzi she just gets hated by everyone if her behavior suddenly gets worse and more provocative without any real reason. That is why I am saying that Zhao Yanzi is the „victim" in this situation, in reality, she is acting out of character, but instead that people complain about the author, all the blame gets pushed on Zhao Yanzi.

And, this is my own opinion right now, I personally think that this whole story lives from two concepts that are extremely unusual from normal cultivation stories, which is what makes it so good. Those two concepts are „kindness" and (for the lack of a better word) „realism", at least for the main cast. But while everyone in the main cast is 80% kindness and 20% realism, Zhao Yanzi is more or less 99% realism. I have read many, and i mean really many, stories and novels from Japan, China and Korea, although it doesn't matter from where they are, and I have to say that Zhao Yanzi is by far one of the most realistic characters that I have seen, so I really think that it is a pity that she gets such a treatment, especially from the readers but also from the author, although I can understand why this decision was made.

So, that's about it, I hope that many people will read this and stop brainlessly hating on characters without thinking everything through. Because that is the reason, at least for me, why I have almost abandoned the comment section of this novel since every second comment is about how hateful of a character Zhao Yanzi is, and that is really annoying.

On a side note, if you agree with me (not my own opinions about the characters but about the situation) and think that it is worth it reading this, please make other people aware of this in the comment section, to get more people to read this.

Thanks for reading!

On another side note, this is for those i****s that claim that the story would be more interesting if Zhao Yanzi where to die...

I don't know if you cant realize this, but Zhao Yanzi is more or less the main driving force of this story, without her, it would degenerate into a boring slice of life story with a little bit of cultivation content.

But okay, let's think about what would happen IF she died, especially at the time where I first saw these kinda comments, and that was before Hao Ren became the commanding general.

1. Hao Ren would lose his main motivation to cultivate, he only very recently started to aim for the Heavenly Dragon Realm.

2. Hao ren would lose most of his connection with East Ocean Dragon Palace. This has been the main source of conflict over the story, but with Zhao Yanzi's death, he would lose his position as Fuma and, even if Yanzi's Parents were to keep treating him the same way, they would lose all reasons to get him involved in East Oceans affairs. Even though he is already the commanding general, his position would change extremely within East Ocean so that doesn't really matter.

(For example, some would claim that he "let her die" and make him responsible, that could cost him his position as commanding general, especially because Zhao Kuo would probably start to hunt him down. )

3. The approaching episodes about Sky Mountain sect would fall away because Zhao Yanzi is also here the main driving force and the same counts for the demon sea.

4. Hao Rens love relationships would end up becoming not worth writing about, simply because there wouldn't be any conflict.

It would go roughly like this:

Hao Ren and Xie Yujia get together without any problem, and at the same time, Lili and Linlin somehow sneak in without anyone really realizing. At a later time, Su Han might also join in but at that time everything will go smoothly without any conflict either because with Lili and Linlin the Harem is already established so there isn't any difference if Su Han were to join as well.

I could go on like this the whole day but I won't because I have better things to do, just freaking understand that this story has "kindness" as one of its main concepts, but you cant create conflict like that. And without conflict, there isn't a story. Well, it is actually possible to create a story like that, but that is only possible if everyone were to pick a fight with the MC without any good reason, and we have already more than enough of this type of story.

In short, if Zhao Yanzi where to die at any point in the story, the story would completely break down and become something completely different. The consequences of her death are just so big that they would completely annihilate the core of this story.

So seriously, please stop saying BS like that Zhao Yanzi dying would make the story "better", because that just is not true and pretty obvious if you think about it as well, it would just destroy this story completely!

Thanks for reading again!