I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: hiatus.

[READ: May 13, 2023] Remnants of Filth Book 2

I didn’t expect to read any more books in this series, but then book 2 came to my desk and I had to see what happened next.  Now I’m half way into the series and I’m very curious how it will play out.  But I’m quite certain I’ll never see Part 3.  Incidentally, our library had books 2-4 of Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou’s more noteworthy series The Husky and the White Cat Shizun (why don’t we have book one?)

So, it’s been a while, what did I say last time?

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.

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.

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.

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.

In book one, Mo Xi brought Gu Mang out of the slavery he was stuck in.  Mo Xi has to do some twisting of reality for people to believe that he is holding on to Gu Mang for reasonably reasons but Mo Xi is so virtuous, no one questions his motives.

But Gu Mang has been so destroyed by his slavery that he is basically like a baby (or a puppy, since he thinks of himself as a wolf in a pack).  He doesn’t understand anything and he acts like an animal.  But he quickly learns that Mo Xi is the alpha, so he behaves somewhat.

Mo Xi, who clearly loves him still, despite all of the terrible things that Gu Mang did to him (he was a traitor to his country after all), is so torn about his feelings.  He loves him, but he hates him.  And he finds this dog-like behavior to be an affront to everything he believes in.  Especially when Gu Mang transgresses in ways he can’t possibly understand (he literally understands nothing–not even language most of the time).  And yet, all along, he desperately hopes Gu Mang will remember their past so he can finally get some closure–even if that closure means killing Gu Mang for his past behavior.

Then Mo Xi goes to a healer and (for an extravagant sum) he gets a potion that will help Gu Mang restore (some of) his memories.  But Mo Xi is disappointed as the memories that Gu Mang recovers are the “wrong ones.”  I particularly enjoyed the memory of when Gu Mang showed the uptight Mo Xi a porn magazine and wanted to see Mo Xi’s reaction when the page was two men together.

And the book becomes a roller coaster of Mo Xi softening to Gu Mang and then getting more angry with him.  And Gu Mang getting afraid of the angry Mo Xi and then realizing more and more that he maybe should be with him?

There’s a further complication as at the end of the book Princess Mengze returns t o the picture.  Everyone believes/believed that Mo Xi and Mengze are meant for each other.  Their history is complicated as Mo Xi was too upright to agree to go with her, and she probably still wants to be with him–and he might as well?

Since I have never read a danmei before, I don’t know in what direction the story will ultimately go.

Will Mo Xi and Gu Mang wind up together (despite it being forbidden)?  Will Mo Xi and the Princess wind up together with Gu Mang being on the side?  (I can’t imagine how that would work, but again, I don’t know these stories at all).  I’m assuming that Mo Xi won’t kill Gu Mang, as that would undermine all of the romance.  But again, who knows.

As with the first book, this one moves slowly and is a little frustrating.  Mo Xi is far to proud to ever admit…anything, so there’s lots of misunderstandings and hurt feelings.  I don’t enjoy that kind of plot, but it is the heart of literally every romantic story.  But if this series is 4 (or 5) volumes, I fear that the agony will stretch out too long for my enjoyment.

We’ll see.  Volume 3 was just translated in March, so I may just see this new book at work too.

As with Book 1, I liked that the back of the book had an explanation of characters and locations as well as a pronunciation guide.