Qiang Jin Jiu Review
Danmei Web Novel Review: Qiang Jin Jiu by Tang Jiu Qing
The Story
The novel opens with 16 year old Shen Zechuan imprisoned. He’s being tortured and interrogated about his father's actions. The man may have betrayed the Kingdom. While commanding an army Shen Wei retreated several times in a row. They say that he didn’t defend his post and that the manner in which he retreated was improper. This made it easy for the invading force to rampage through the country killing both civilians and troops alike. The man then supposedly set himself on fire and burnt to death.
This all sounds very suspicious and it’s clear that there’s more to the story, but how would questioning an unloved illegitimate son like Shen Zechuan help. Shen Zechuan is his father’s eight son. He was basically tossed out of the Shen household for someone else to raise. If Shen Wei did plot treason the teen would be the last person he’d tell.
The boy knows nothing but the King and the rest of the court wants him to admit that his father is a traitor. His confession would tie the case up in a neat little bow, but Shen Zechuan refuses to do so. He wants to live so he claims that his father is innocent. He’s doing it to save his own skin but that’s understandable.
There's even a moment where one of the ministers points out that the boy wasn’t close enough to his father to have any information so how could he say that the man was innocent. He accuses Shen Zechuan of being sly, but by that same logic if the boy wasn’t close enough to his father to have knowledge of his innocence then he wasn’t close enough to have knowledge of the man’s guilt either. Why torture him then?
Everyone wants to use Shen Zechuan as a scapegoat. They want to kill him in the name of “justice”, but he’s a stubborn one. He wants to survive and plans to do so regardless of the cost.
Who’s it for?
Fans of court and political intrigue might enjoy this. It also has a steamy enemies to lovers storyline. There are some minor wuxia elements as well because several characters are martial artists.
Why I Stopped Reading
After seeing Qiang Jin Jiu on so many recommended reading lists by fans of BL web novels I probably built it up too much in my mind. The book simply couldn’t live up to the hype. I found it too much of a slog to get through and abandoned it in the middle of chapter 43.
Court politics isn’t one of my favorite genres, but I don’t mind political novels. I don’t mind long novels. What I can’t handle is a long drawn out political story where I have no interest in the outcome and that’s what this story became to me.
Shen Zechuan wanting revenge makes sense. Him becoming ruthless is not surprising. As much as I sympathize with him the book never made me want to root for him. I didn’t care enough about his revenge to keep reading. The conspiracies either annoyed or bored me.
It’s possible to make readers fall in love, against their better judgement, with a ruthless character or for “the bad guy”. Some of my favorite characters are the kind of people I would never want to meet in real life e.g. Wei Wuxian, Wen Kezing, Fei Du, etc. They’re dangerous and at times unhinged, but their stories were told in such a way that I came to care about them and their journey. That’s somehow missing for me in this novel.
In terms of the romance, I appreciate the fact that the author had the guts to do a true enemies to lovers trope. The two main characters genuinely hate each other in the beginning. In most stories it’s more of a mild dislike to lovers. Unfortunately, I didn’t like the dynamic between them so I didn’t care if they ended up together. I wanted there to be more to their relationship than intense attraction. Perhaps that came later, but I’ll admit that I didn’t stick around long enough to find out.