Book/Manga first impressions review: The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu
I actually discovered this story by browsing Netflix and clicking on a Chinese TV series titled ‘The Untamed’ that was described thus: “In a magical world of inter-clan rivalry, two soulmates face treacherous schemes and uncover a dark mystery linked to a tragic event in the past.” I watched the first two episodes and thought they were all right, with some enjoyably cheesy special effects. However, the plot and world-building were a bit confusing, and apart from the main characters - mischievous sort-of-reincarnated dark magic user Wei WuXian and overly serious Lan WangJi - I had trouble keeping track of the characters. The credits listed “based on a novel by Mo Xiang Tong Xiu”. Hang on! Isn’t that the author of ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’? Yes, yes it is! However, due to censorship issues in China, the central relationship in the show was, according to Wikipedia, reduced to some heavy subtext. I therefore went to the internet to try to find a translation of the novel. In the process I found a manga version translated by the same team, which I started following as well to get some illustrations to accompany the more detailed text. Both immediately made more sense, and the story was overall enjoyable. However, the romance did get way spicier on-page than ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’ and some of those bits break characterization in an alarming way – but I’ll get to that at the end of the review.
The gist of the story is this: Wei WuXian, AKA ‘the Yiling Patriarch’, died with a reputation for dark magic and betrayal. Over a dozen years later, a mistreated and mentally unstable young man named Mo XuanYu conjures Wei WuXian’s spirit to take over his body and carry out revenge against those who wronged him. While WWX’s memories are spotty at best, it is immediately clear that he isn’t nearly as sinister as everyone thinks - but if he doesn’t carry out MXY’s revenge, the wounds on his new body won’t heal. Luckily, another ghostly force starts attacking the Mo clan, which seems to count as far as the curse is concerned. This brings WWX into contact with the disciples of Lan WangJi’s sect. WWX surreptitiously assists them with his ghost magic while pretending to be crazy. When Lan WangJi shows up, he slips away, afraid he might be recognized – not realizing that LWJ would actually be delighted to know he’s no longer dead!
I quickly fell in love with our chaotic bisexual disaster of a protagonist. Wei WuXian is good-hearted and extremely knowledgeable – making him an excellent teacher for the younger characters - but he is impulsive and doesn’t really think through consequences. He likes to tease people and the dour Lan WangJi has always been an irresistible target. It took me a bit longer to warm to the latter. What won me over is realizing the complicated stew of emotions LWJ must be dealing with behind his stoic façade: grieving the love he never confessed alone because everyone else thinks WWX is the villain, then finding this young man who doesn’t look like him but clearly is him, and then realizing WWX isn’t just being cautious – he honestly doesn’t remember most of their history! Wei WuXian is puzzled that he can’t get a rise out of Lan WangJi the way he used to by “pretending” to flirt with him. Well, not the angry reaction he’s expecting, anyway! Initially this is pretty cute but there’s eventually some scenes that make me question LWJ’s character all over again.
Here WWX insists they drink some wine, and LWJ gets plastered from one bowl (relatable) and initiates a weird hybrid of tag and hide-and-seek. I initially thought LWJ stopping things at this point by knocking himself out was a bit extra. Turns out that was a smart move, actually.
In my reviews for ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’ (book and anime) I mentioned not being sure if some of the other character’s reactions to Xie Lian and Hua Cheng were homophobic or due to other factors. In this story, other characters definitely have disparaging things to say about “cut sleeves”1 – again, this isn’t ultimately a barrier for the main couple, though it is less clear why. The younger cast members seem to recognize LWJ and WWX as a pair (at least subconsciously) and be cool with it fairly early on, as the panels below suggest! Lan WangJi’s brother is also a good wingman. He knows how to read LWJ’s stony face, and regularly makes remarks along the lines of: “Why don’t you go talk to WWX? You look like you want to go talk to him!” In both books there are a range of entertaining side characters and magical mysteries to be solved, though the magic used is different. Wei WuXian can control walking corpses with a flute or put his soul into a little paper figure and has invented a lot of devices and techniques that are still used by others. Lan WangJi, though a good swordsman, can also fight or talk to spirits with music from a zither. In fact, it is through a song that he recognizes WWX – his dramatic personality and unusually extreme fear of dogs only serve to confirm his identity.
1. A term that actually has a really sweet origin story, as explained in Overly Sarcastic Production’s 'Pride Tales’ video.
Note: Han-Guang-Jun is what the Lan disciples call LWJ.
Eventually, Wei WuXian’s identity is revealed in front of a crowd; he has to make a run for it and is wounded in the process. He wakes to find himself being carried on Lan WangJi’s back and remembers that he once carried LWJ. This triggers a very important flashback of when, as youths, they were trapped in a cave with a giant man-eating turtle. Each risks his life for the other and eventually they manage to kill it but remain stuck. This is probably when LWJ realizes he’s in love with WWX; he seems to be working out how he feels about that. Wei Wu-Xian, though, is increasingly convinced that Lan WangJi must actually hate him if, after all they’ve been through, he’s still standoffish. Simultaneously, Wei Wu-Xian is claiming not to be into guys despite doing things like replying “You mean the good-looking one?” when people ask if he knows LWJ, doodling pictures of him, or whining to sleep in his lap. I’d say that was an irritating plot drama thing (and I’ll get back to the self-definition in a bit) but, on reflection, for this period in his life - yeah, it’s almost too relatable!2
2. For example: [College friend, to a group of us girls] “Why is dating so hard! It would be so much simpler if we could just date each other. Too bad we’re straight, ha ha!” [Me] “Well, I dunno. Have you heard about this Kinsey scale thing? Who knows if in a different cultural context…” Yes, pure intellectual speculation, obviously!
The manga translation I started with was discontinued around this point, in favor of the official translation…which I couldn’t find at the link indicated. I did, however, find a different fan translation that is still being updated. In any case, the episode in the cave was precipitated by the Wen clan, who had already burned down Lan WangJi’s home. Annoyed by Wei WuXian sticking up for LWJ and others they were bullying, the Wens soon attack his foster parents as well and strand WWX on Yiling mountain, an old battleground full of the resentful energy of thousands of corpses. He doesn’t die, instead re-emerging with new spooky powers just as the other clans are mounting a rebellion on the Wens.
It was Wei WuXian! However, apart from the face, from top to bottom, this person was nowhere like the past Wei WuXian…this person was entirely enveloped in a cold, dark energy. He was handsome, yet pale-faced, his smile eerie…A white child squatted by his feet. Like a young, carnivorous beast, it was gnawing something that Wei WuXian fed it…Needless to say – they must be Wen Chao’s fingers! Lan WangJi stared at the ghastly ghost child…His grip tightened around Bichen’s hilt.
Lan WangJi tries to warn WWX that this dark magic will destroy him – even though, after the initial revenge, he isn’t actually trying to hurt anyone. LWJ is right, though less because of the nature of the magic and more because of the nature of people. The reason WWX can’t follow LWJ’s advice to take a different path is heartbreaking when we finally learn it! Although there’s no fixing the past, our present-day heroes are able to take down some remaining baddies, repair Wei WuXian’s reputation - to the extent that his trouble-making nature allows - and build a new life together.
If I were to compare this to ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’, I’d say that - although this one is more slapstick funny while also having higher stakes because neither main character is an immortal - the latter is the stronger work overall. For one thing, ‘The Grandmaster of Demon Cultivation’ has too many antagonists and some felt a bit superfluous or “evil just to be evil”. There are also more and better female side characters in ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’. Even the ones that do bad things usually have traits or backstories that make them sympathetic - and the Rain Master is such an understated badass – while this story has several who are utterly irredeemable and/or depicted in arguably misogynistic ways. The clever street urchin A-Qing is good, but her story didn’t have much to do with the main narrative. I was also excited to see Wen Qing, sister of WWX’s undead sidekick Wen Ning, introduced as a powerful and accomplished woman, but her one important act is only mentioned after the fact3. More importantly, though, the relationship between the lead characters in ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’ is unquestionably swoon-worthy throughout, whereas this story has some problematic elements.
3. She might have a bigger role in ‘The Untamed’, being introduced early and in scenes where she didn’t initially appear. Between one chunk of my brain enthusing over how ridiculously gorgeous the actress is and another chunk worrying that they were putting her in so early as a replacement love interest, I was having a little trouble focusing on the rest of the plot and characters. I figured I’d better finish the book first, so I stopped at episode 6.
Manga classified as yaoi or BL (“boys love”) are often accused of fetishizing gay men for the benefit of a straight female readership4. ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’ steers well clear of this in several ways, and not just by keeping anything more explicit than kissing "off-screen". Xie Lian and Hua Cheng’s relationship develops in a natural and harmonious way right from the start, and they are pretty careful not to overstep boundaries without a clear signal. The story even uses two instances of magically-enhanced horniness to illustrate this. In the first, which occurs when one of them is still human, Xie Lian successfully fights the influence of the demon pollen and nothing happens at all. In the second, an energy disturbance agitates all the ghosts; Hua Cheng tells Xie Lian to leave, but he refuses because HC is clearly in distress. The next day Hua Cheng is terrified that he might have done something awful. But they just made out for a few hours - even when out of his mind he stuck to the boundaries XL was setting! Xie Lian feels guilty, though, because although “energy balancing through kissing” is similar to things they’d done before and both of them seemed into it, he can’t be 100% sure the initial “leave” request was only meant for his own safety. Jealousy isn’t an issue for XL and HC either – the latter spent 800 years thinking “XL is clearly way too good for me, but he also gets into trouble a lot, so I’ll just be his secret guardian-demon” while the former has always insisted that he doesn’t care about HC being a ghost or what is in his backstory. It’s a really sweet, healthy relationship that doesn’t try to follow harmful tropes or gender roles. Wei WuXian and especially Lan WangJi, though…oof.
To be fair, many of the scenes between them, while racier than those in HOB, are still sweet or fun. Not all, though! Lan WangJi exhibits this “if you tease me, I can’t be held responsible for what I might do” attitude. Now, while not my kink, that’s fine if it isn’t too literal and both parties have agreed to the game. Wei WuXian fortunately turns out to be really into LWJ’s forcefulness - but on several occasions he wouldn’t have had the chance to indicate if he wasn’t, and that is not OK! Also, in some cases the hastiness involved could easily cause physical damage even with proper consent. Considering that LWJ is depicted in all other scenes as being very careful of Wei WuXian’s wellbeing, those two aspects are really jarring. He also gets unnecessarily jealous, which I’ve always found unattractive. In ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’, while Xie Lian has to grow into the realization that he’s attracted to Hua Cheng, his main issue is that his “cultivation path” is an ascetic one; neither seems to have any internalized shame about liking a guy. Wei WuXian, on the other hand, is still wondering if he caught the gay from the new body he inherited, doing the “I just like Lan WangJi; I don’t want to put a label on it” thing, or insisting he didn’t know certain activities were an option (even though he’s the one who reads porn) right up to the end. Arrgh. I was also hoping that, since he daydreamed about retiring to a country cottage where he would do the farming and hunting and LWJ would weave and do the cooking, we might see more of a questioning of roles within their relationship. But…nope. WWX is the “wife” and that’s that, apparently. Seriously, I was tempted to light some incense to Hua Cheng and Xie Lian, praying that they would show up and give these idiots some relationship advice, particularly pertaining to kink negotiation5.
4. Here’s one video I’ve seen discussing this topic in manga, and another sarcastically satirizing the weird tropes that come up way too often when straight women write gay fanfiction. Basically, the main offenders are exactly the tropes I hate most in straight romance stories somehow made worse by combining them with things like anatomical inaccuracy and the tacit assumption that assault isn’t as serious if the victim is male.
5. The post-script story “The Crown Prince’s Bizarre Memory Loss Adventures” in the “extras” for HOB suggests they’d probably know what they were talking about!
Overall recommendation: As is probably clear, I’d definitely recommend reading ‘Heaven Official’s Blessing’ before this one. ‘The Grandmaster of Demon Cultivation’ is an earlier work, and it shows! However, there are a lot of elements that I really liked, especially Wei Wu-Xian himself - that’s why the problematic scenes were especially upsetting! The iffy elements hadn’t come up yet at the point where the manga translation stops, so I don’t know if it includes them or not, but I suspect the anime may avoid them. ‘The Untamed’ had to change too much, and also re-orders things for no apparent reason - jumping straight to a flashback that is dozens of episodes long at the end of episode 2, rather than letting us learn things as WWX remembers them. But it would be another option for experiencing the story without the explicit content. I haven’t finished either of those versions, though, so take that with a grain of salt!
