villainous friendIt’s time!
Yay, Liu Tongyi is here! Love that guy. Whatever trouble there is in this book, I’m sure he can help sort it out.
[one page later] Oh… Prince Dai is here too. 😬
Btw: my impression here on mastodon is that it’s not considered rude to livetoot media in the main tag (and my personal feeling is that it’s nice to see any content on the tags I follow), but if people prefer I could also add a personal reading tag, please lmk.
#ImperialUncle update: I’m halfway through and just consistently delighted by this book. Da Feng Gua Guo is officially my new favourite author.
More detailed thoughts later, probably—I am highlighting various passages to return to, but don’t want to break off reading to share them!
Mentions of Zhang Ping are glancing but positive… is this what people feel when they refer to a character as their ‘son’? I’m so proud of him!
#ImperialUncle, chapter 2:
Prince Dai! Oh yes, that’s him; that is one hundred percent the kid who caused an international incident, got sent to the countryside to think about what he’d done, and (mild #ZhangGongAn Arc 4 spoiler in next post).
… ran away to spend most of #ZhangGongAn Arc 4 pretending to be a jaded jianghu hero called Wuming (without a name), blundered around playing out lines from his favourite novels, and instantly got himself and Lan Jue’s son into big trouble.
I love how much books and literature are a presence in these stories!
Mura 💜💚@villainousfriend yes, that is Qitan, yep yep 😂😂😂
@villainousfriend it’s a delightful book 😆
@villainousfriend wait… where they in League of Nobleman drama? Or the book? Because I sure don’t remember them
@gekidasa In the book! Liu Tongyi is Lan Jue's nephew, who came first in the imperial examination in the same year as Zhang Ping. He helps out with the mystery in Arc 5.
Prince Dai is the emperor's younger brother, who causes an international incident by spying on a prince from a northern country, visiting the court for diplomatic purposes, in the bath. He gets temporarily demoted to a commoner as punishment and sent off to the countryside, and Lan Jue has to act as his tutor for the duration. This is what he gets as his reward for doing well in a past case and asking for a holiday! 😅
@villainousfriend re: Prince Dai, of course he does 😂😂😂 I love him, he’s such a disaster
Liu Tongyi is pretty important in Imperial Uncle. So that was that whole thing when they took the test in the drama and there were shenanigans?
@villainousfriend I’ve been wondering about placing the two stories in the context of each other. The emperor we see in the drama, that makes friends with Zhang Ping, is Jing Qizhe, right? So it’s the same empress dowager all along? But imperial Uncle would take place somewhat after?
I’m somewhat fuzzy on events from the drama, though. I seem to remember the empress dowager dying? Or did dhe get better?
@gekidasa i think you’ve got the characters and the chronology right. She does really did in the drama though, and not in the book
@villainousfriend ah ok! Does Qizhe go off to war in the novel and is he also not actually the previous emperor’s son?
@gekidasa no, neither of those! And the whole plot story with Gu Qingzhang coming back and trying to take over and bring the real soon isn’t there either… He’s just dead so far as we know. :( *if* I understand the mtl correctly!
@villainousfriend ok, super different then 😂