Ostentatious Zhao Yao (The Legends) 招摇 by 九鹭非香 Jiu Lu Fei Xiang (HE)

9 Responses

1. 

   Treenymph June 29, 2016 at 8:20 pm | Permalink

   Ooh, Xianxia!

   Can someone tell me who the male lead is and what he is like?

2. 

   ChocolateCosmos June 30, 2016 at 7:21 pm | Permalink

   @ Treenymph The male lead is Mo Qing. It’s a 1v1, so it’s mainly him and the female Zhao Yao.
   I haven’t started on this book so I can’t say much on the male, sorry.
   I’ve been reading 几回魂梦 , another xianxia by 九鹭非香. I’m thinking some time along Shushengbar will post most of 九鹭非香’s ancient books

3. 

   ChocolateCosmos July 1, 2016 at 11:12 pm | Permalink

   @Treenymph
   Alright, I’m going to read this story along with 几回魂梦. It seems like 几回魂梦 has less of 九鹭非香’s humor as it’s one of her earlier novels she has written so I need to read this for more humor, aha. I shall catch back on you in a week or so 😀 Can’t say I will finish it but I’ll probably be a couple chapters in by then ^.^

4. 

   dramasbooksandtea July 2, 2016 at 2:48 am | Permalink

   I think it’s pretty clear that I’m a fan of 九鹭非香, and that I read her books as soon as I can get my hands on them. Even though I was somewhat disappointed by her last attempt, 护心 (Heart Protection), I was pleasantly surprised to find that 九鹭非香 had returned to her usual hilarious and sweet style in 招摇 (Ostentatious Zhao Yao). Having said, although the story maintains a great pace during a large part of the novel, it nevertheless does start to drag nearing the end. Thankfully, 九鹭非香 tied it up as swiftly as she could, so the draggy bits didn’t really affect my satisfaction with the novel.

   The novel’s premise has been used a couple of times, and basically involves the “spirit” of the deceased Lu Zhao Yao falling in love with the currently reigning demon king, Mo Qing. When she was alive, Lu Zhao Yao was widely known as the most infamous and evil demon leader. She lived her entire demon life in a loud and ostentatious manner, and reigned over legions of demons. However, just as she was about to retrieve the sword of the ancient demon king and rightfully claim her spot on the throne, she… died. In the most quiet, and unobtrusive manner possible. How did she die? Well, she was accidentally “killed” by Mo Qing (who was one of her lowest ranking lackeys at that point in time) when he retrieved the demon sword and unintentionally unleashed the sword’s demonic aura onto the heavily injured Lu Zhao Yao. Given her quiet and untimely death, and her firm belief that Mo Qing was a sneaky betrayer who was waiting in the shadows to give her that final stab as she was dying, Lu Zhao Yao was highly aggrieved and refused to head to the underworld and reincarnate. Thus, she continued hanging around in the human world in her spirit form. However, Lady Luck had not completed deserted her – one fine day, a female disciple from the Immortal Sect (Zhi Yan) got into a tussle with her childhood friend, and rammed her head onto Lu Zhao Yao’s grave. After that incident, Lu Zhao Yao found that, to her utmost delight, she was able to possess Zhi Yan’s body for short spans of time. Thus begins her journey to avenge her very own death by destroying Mo Qing, and in the process, resume her rightful place as the King over all the demon sects!

   Both leads are absolutely lovable – although Lu Zhao Yao likes to brag about her “evilness”, she really does possess a good heart and this is especially evident to those who actually make the effort to understand her. She does have a backstory however, which explains her transformation into the loud and ostentatious demon lord. Being extremely slow in the romance department, she doesn’t actually realise her budding feelings for Mo Qing and Mo Qing’s obvious love for her till much later in the book, but it does provide lots of fodder for comic relief. Mo Qing, the reigning demon king, is an extremely loyal person who possessed and unrequited love for Lu Zhao Yao ever since he met her. He never intended to kill Lu Zhao Yao, and the knowledge that he had caused her death weighs heavily on him. Mo Qing realises quite early on that “Zhi Yan” was, at certain times of the day, possessed by Zhao Yao, and Zhao Yao’s obvious intentions to avenge her very own death. However, he remains quiet about the realisation as he fears that Zhao Yao might leave and never return if she found out that he knew about her “existence”. Luckily for him, Zhao Yao eventually falls in love with him, and he finally gets his feelings returned.

5. 

   dramasbooksandtea July 2, 2016 at 2:54 am | Permalink

   @ ChocolateCosmos Is 几回魂梦 good? I’ve read most of 九鹭非香’s novels but I haven’t really touched on her earlier works – the quality of her earlier works fluctuates a fair bit (but again, the quality of her recent works continues to fluctuate as well). Do read Zhao Yao, I think its a great attempt by 九鹭非香 to return to a more light hearted and funny style.

   @ Treenymph I hope my review is sufficient for your purposes! Apologies for the late review, I was tied up with work, but do read the novel if you have time, it’s actually really hilarious because of Zhao Yao’s strange slowness in the romance department (which really makes me exasperated for our poor Mo Qing, who often gets his good intentions twisted – for example, there was this one incident when Mo Qing came to visit her grave, but Lu Zhao Yao immediately zoomed in on the sword of the ancient demon king hanging by Mo Qing’s belt, and despite Mo Qing’s sad expression on his face, Lu Zhao Yao interpreted his visit as coming to “brag” to her about his ownership of the sword and his delight at being the reigning demon king…

6. 

   ChocolateCosmos July 2, 2016 at 5:13 am | Permalink

   @dramasbooksandtea
   Thanks for the overview of 招摇 (Ostentatious Zhao Yao). Makes it more exciting to read.

   Overview (from what I have read):
   As for 几回魂梦, it’s probably one of her earliest long novels. It’s earlier than San Sheng and Mighty Girl, so I guess it’s very “raw” coming from 九鹭非香. The humor as I mentioned before is minimal in comparison to her later works. There is no funny beginning, which I like to attribute to 九鹭非香. I really did enjoy her funny beginnings too much lol, love The King is Here’s and Demon King’s beginning.
   The beginning or rather her foreword (prologue) for 几回魂梦 is extremely long (four parts) and sets up the whole story (“A Drunken Dream”).

   This novel is a time-traveling novel; however, she does not travel some ancient palace or whatnot, she travels to Jiu Zhou, a magical land filled with demons, creatures of all kinds, magic, and basically a lot of typical xianxia elements. The female Yan Ruo Yi is a modern woman transported by witch Momo (who I think is absolutely awesome) to this fantasy world.

   The prologue starts off with her already living in xianxia world for a very long time and that she has met the male lead and the other characters before. So the majority of the novel is her recalling her memories with various characters, especially her memory with the male lead, Cang Xiao. He’s a powerful nine-tailed fox and is the person in charge of the fox clan. She recollects how she rescued an injured Cang Xiao and nursed him back to health, along with falling in love him. Her point of view provides to the readers her inner thoughts and how she felt that she was foolish for falling so easily in love with the male lead. When he gets back to his fox clan after his recovery, she found out he wants to revive a female (I must apologize for not specifically naming all the characters as my Chinese is minimal and I read this in Viet). The whole time (in the prologue) she was devastated about him supposedly loving another female and how she attributes a bunch of actions he did as cold and cruel (he’s pretty short-temper and stoic). He found out that she has received this pure heart from another male (again sorry I forgot his name, it’s either Zi Tan or Wu Luo lol… or that could be the girl’s name aha) who is actually a descendant of a powerful ancient immortal/God that sealed off magical beasts (so many heads lol). Cang Xiao demands that Yan Ruo Yi use the heart to revive the sleeping female (she slept for 400 years or so). The female lead didn’t use the other male’s heart, but planted it in one of the garden in her cave (which sprouted a bunch of trees) and used her blood to revive the sleeping girl. Basically it’s a whole misunderstanding on the female part that resulted in her returning to modern China after jumping the Han Yu peaks. Her last memory of him was he telling her to grab his hand. She kept questioning whether he would be devastated if she died or if she was gone forever.

   When she came back to the modern world, she spent two years there. Fast-forward two years, when she came back from her blind date set up by her house mate (Momo the witch), she got transported back to Jiu Zhou again by a mysterious old man. She saw his face, but cannot recall it.
   Two years of her time became two thousand years of Jiu Zhou.
   Once she returned back to Jiu Zhou, she discovered the fox clan and the immortal clan waged war against each other to claim land and those wars lay ruin to several areas. Again the female was surprised by the devastating sceneries and how the line between the immortal, human, and demon (not really demon, but creatures taking human shape) becoming clearly divided. The male lead Cang Xiao was sealed off during the two thousand years (or so?) and it due to the female lead’s return that he ended up breaking the seal. One of the changes of Cang Xiao is that he has a demon mark on his face. This indicates something about joining dark side or dark magic…. I really don’t know how to explain this lol, but since you read so many xianxia I figure you might know what I am talking about?

   In terms of their relationship, the female lead for at least (almost) halfway of the novel thought the male lead loved someone else. The male lead on the other hand is extremely devastated from her leaving him and is a total “ if you go somewhere I shall go with you, if you die I shall die with you” kind of guy. He’s a very loyal person to the female and is very sacrificial to the female. He did this traditional imprint on the female lead that binds their lives together and is declaration of his love for her (although she rather not think of it that way).

   So far this novel is pretty decent. It’s a bit too much heart tugging on several parts with the female lead’s misunderstanding and there were times I wanted to slap both of them lol. Don’t worry though they cleared up their misunderstanding at the halfway (ish) point. I can’t say much for the rest of the novel, but I know for sure it’s a happy ending 🙂 I’m at chapter 34 and the whole novel is around 70 chapters and two epilogues. I found the female is somewhat similar to Little Orchid from Demon King in that they are both scared of things (I would be horrid too) and how some things turn out because many times they would end up in trouble at some point and need the male lead’s help. What’s great is character development of the female lead who was originally more daring and silly in the beginning (as in before the prologue occurs) and became more brave later on, but also became a little cold from being heartbroken two thousand years ago. However, unlike Little Orchid, Yan Ruo Yi immensely loves the male lead and is willing to risk her life for him from the very beginning of the novel. Her coldness and bravery is apparent early on in the novel as she try to become more independent and does not want to rely on the male lead. There’s a couple of funny situations like when she was chased by a human head with a tiger body creature and settle against the creature by having the creature ram into a wall full of needles and kicking his special area multiple times lol. As for the couple interactions… the beginning was the case of who is colder to the other person and who became hurt from that (a bit frustrating).

   I realized this novel is a bit more philosophical as the female noted various aspects of life and love (this adds to her maturation) in comparison to Demon King. I just felt really sad in the beginning for the female and hated the male lead a bit in the prologue, but my hate was short-lived lol. I guess the remaining parts would be the two leads rekindling their love and working together to solve situations and discover things about other characters(ex: sleeping girl, the other male) and themselves.

   Sorry for this super long comment (and grammar mistakes). I appreciate your review and will start reading招摇 (Ostentatious Zhao Yao) soon because I want more comic scenes haha.

7. 

   snowflower May 13, 2017 at 1:01 pm | Permalink

   I enjoyed this novel, so as a spoiler Zhao Yao isn’t actually dead. I thought the most hilarious part was that ghost market has a prejudice against evil people and one of the crimes Zhao Yao is accused of is rape which she vehemently protests once she sees her own memories.

8. 

   Julianne February 20, 2019 at 4:12 am | Permalink

   Omg in the past week I’ve fallen in love with this author! I started with Zhao Yao because of the current drama (which is a pretty good adaptation that preserves the spirit if not all of the plot). The book I really like. Tbh, while this is probably the best place to leave a thorough review of Zhao Yao, I’ve been ranting so much about her books (in discord, avv, various websites) that I’m kinda tired of “repeating” myself lol.

   I do have to say that I hope shushengbar puts up her other books soon because omg I ADORE Accompanying the Phoenix. It’s probably one of my favorite novels like, ever. Shen Li is my favorite character to be written; Xing Zhi, while occasionally annoying lol, is very well written and too adorable to hold a grudge against. And the plot! Very much its own pretty complete plot completely outside of the romance too. Both characters are very well-written and complete, genuine people, with their own agency and beliefs outside of love. Shen Li’s strength of mind lies in her unwavering conviction in anything she does; many times I find her much stronger in mind and sometimes spirit than Xing Zhi too. Both live up to their responsibilities to the fullest extent, and the plot moves forward because of them, not in spite of them. They’re the best example of “with great power comes great responsibility”, and they carry that responsibility so well. Every decision and action they make are made with the fullest awareness of all consequences to themselves and the possible consequences to all of life too…and they make those decisions steadily in spite of those consequences.

   This should have been a review for Zhao Yao, but I just want to say I really love her as an author overall (at least 2/2 books I’ve tried so far). 九鹭非香 does exceptionally well of creating very complete stories in both character, plot, and emotion. Xing Zhi was really well written, but Mo Qing less so, imo. But overall, she writes very genuine female characters that have their own thoughts, goals, purposes, belief systems, outside of romance, and stick to their sense of self in SPITE of also willing to sacrifice for romance.

9. 

   Elvendestiny February 23, 2019 at 10:23 pm | Permalink

   Are there any other audiobook links other than ximalaya?

   Also there are excellent English translations of the novel up to chapter 10 here at Silent Moon Translations:

   https://silentmoontranslations.wordpress.com/2019/01/05/ostentatious-zhao-yao-chapter-10/

   Now that the drama has been released, I hope there is renewed interest in this novel and more translators/Eng subbers are attracted to the work! I love the author’s writing style and her characters are so refreshingly different from the other xian xia works – well, at least the female heroines. The broody male hero is still rather stereotypical but it works so well 🙂