Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know Review
Web Novel: Devil Venerable Also Wants to Know by Cyan Wings
The Story
Picture this you’re a Demon Sect Leader. You spend your days happily doing whatever it is that Demon Lords do when suddenly a book appears in your hand. You open it, start reading and discover that not only are you a character in a book, but that you’re one of the male leads in an abusive love story. That's exactly what happens to Wenren È, Demon Lord of the Xuanyuan Sect.
He’s not stressed though. He’s curious about the book and about several things within the story that simply make no sense to him. Why does Baili Qingmiao, the main character of the book, act the way she does? Remaining stuck in an unhealthy relationship with Hè Wenzhao. Why would someone like himself fall so deeply in love with Baili Qingmiao that he becomes completely devoted to her? Last but not least, why does his faithful subordinate Yin Hanjiang seem to go insane after his death. Since he has so many questions, so many things he wants to know, he decides to investigate things for himself. With Yin Hanjiang at his side Wenren È, heads off to mess with the plot.
Who’s this for?
I’d recommend reading if you’re someone who likes cultivation novels and parodies. It’s a danmei that’s openly mocking “stallion” novels. Those novels in which a male hero runs around overcoming obstacles collecting companions and beauties everywhere he goes. It’s interesting to see such a story from both the male and female perspectives. To the male readers Hè Wenzhao is a hero, to the women he’s a scumbag. It’s an epic tale on one hand and an abusive love story on the other.
The story also gets surprisingly philosophical at times since Wenren È has a deep understanding of the cultivation world and the way it works in this novel. There are many interesting thoughts on nature and the world in general.
There are also likable female characters in this and those can be pretty hard to find in danmei and yaoi.
The Downsides
Flaws, what flaws? Who lied and told you that there were flaws in this novel. Okay, alright, I need to calm down and stop being biased. It’s just that I really like this story, but if I rack my brains I can probably come up with a few possibilities.
The first one is that it contains a psycho male lead/ love interest. This is a pretty common trope and one that’s overused. Honestly, I didn’t mind it much in this story. The reasons behind his behavior made a lot of sense to me. You can’t just pull a kid out of a pile of corpses, ignore him for years and then expect him to be mentally normal. Still Yin Hanjiang is obsessive and that could be a problem for some readers.
A bigger issue might be the age gap between the leads. After all Wenren È rescued Yin Hanjiang when he was a child, that child then grows up to become obsessed with him to the point of madness. However, this is a cultivation novel where people can live for centuries. Wenren È did not raise him and it’s not like he’s dating someone underage, but it’s worth mentioning.
Finally, the two leads have the emotional awareness of a block of wood. Neither of them knows or understands anything about love. That makes it difficult for them to realize the true nature of their feelings for each other. However, I found it funny, not frustrating. As it meant that Wenren È's approach to solving romantic problems were always both straight forward and strange.
Overall, it’s a fun read and with only 82 chapters it’s not a huge investment in time.