I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: August 21, 2023] Remnants of Filth

First.  Unpack the name.

The author of this book is Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (or Roubaobuchirou).  In Chinese that is 肉包不吃肉 which literally translates into Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat.  This last phrase is what she is commonly known as in the United States.

In Chinese the book was called Yuwu (余污) which translates into Pollution.  And the English title is Remnants of Filth.

Second.  What is this?

This book is danmei.  According to The Guardian:

Danmei is romantic fiction about men or male beings – ghosts, foxes, even a mushroom – falling in love, written almost exclusively by and for straight women and is the most popular genre of fiction in China.

Meatbun Doesn’t Eat Meat is a very popular danmei writer and her first book series The Husky and His White Cat Shizun is a bestseller.

This series is about two soldiers.  Mo Xi and Gu Mang. 

The two were friends and then lovers when they were younger.  They fought together and they loved each other.  This was largely forbidden and no one knew of their relationship.

When they became soldiers, Mo Xi was a hard taskmaster.  He was a nobleman and he did not permit any fun or frivolity among his soldiers.  And he had a short temper.  Even n leave, it was known that he never went to brothels or had any pleasure–not even alcohol.

Gu Mang was entirely different.  He was born a slave and although he was an excellent warrior, he had no respect for protocol.  His soldiers were also slaves and his patrol was known to be the wildest especially when on leave. He called them the Wangba Army.  Wangba means tortoise but also bastard.  And Gu Mang was the leader of the bastard army.

And then (and we don’t know why in this book), Gu Mang switched sides.  He joined forces with the enemy.  And on the battlefield when Mo Xi and Gu Mang faced each other, Gu Mang stabbed his friend and lover in the heart.  There’s magic in these books, and Mo Xi survived.

Mo Xi and his soldiers had been on the Northern Front for a few years after this incident.  When they returned home, Mo Xi learned that Gu Mang had been captured and was now living as a beaten man–a prostitute and a slave.  He was mocked and abused daily.  Mo Xi who never went to brothels, went to this one to torture Gu Mang.  But when he saw him, he released that Gu Mang wasn’t  the same person anymore.  Indeed, the doctors say that while he was being tortured before returning, he lost his souls.

Mo Xi hates Gu Mang, but he also hates to see him look like this.  And how can he torture a man who doesn’t remember what he did to deserve it?

The story reveals itself slowly and we meet some other interesting characters, like Murong Lian, the man who now owns Gu Mang and who is the only person in the whole vicinity willing to mock Mo Xi (and to suggest that something is going on between Mo Xi and Gu Mang.

There’s a lot of scenes of Gu Mang being beaten to within an inch of his life (nothing graphic, we mostly see the aftermath) and of Mo Xi fixing him up (under the guise of not allowing this enemy of the state to be killed so easily).  There are some graphic scenes, especially one flashback in which Mo Xi and Gu Mang have very rough and explicit sex (it’s also weird to me that in this story that seems old fashioned and protocol-filled that the word fucking is thrown around so much.  I don’t know if that’s in the original or if it was just the decision of translators Yu & Rui.

The story moves back and forth between the present and their past together.  But by the end of the story there is some real excitement as a spirit comes to life and begins attacking Gu Mang, Mo Xi and Murong Lian together.  It’s a complicated fight full of swords and magic.  And just as it seems like it will be over, a new entity comes forth and the book ends.

So this book 1 of 5.  I’m not sure I will read the other four.  We’ll see how long these two characters stick in my head.

As my first danmei I have to say I enjoyed it rather a lot.  The story was a little slow, but I see now that that’s all about the pacing.  If you’ve got five books, you can’t rush to the excitement right away.  I’m just not sure I have the patience for a five book series.

I also liked that the back of the book had an explanation of characters and locations as well as a pronunciation guide.

There were also a lot of rather funny comments and asides that I didn’t expect.  When a stories circulates about a murderer and rapist who defiled more than seventy women in one night [okay that’s not funny], but a guy retorts: “Defiling and killing more than seventy people in one night! Bro, I’m afraid that rapist isn’t virile–he’s a two-pump chump.

It was a fascinating read and maybe if I ever see that we have book 2 I’ll give it a read.