Beware of Chicken 2: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel

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A week later and he had a rough approximation; spiraling geometrics shapes that looked like shattered glass in colours so intense it made his eyes water. At least Tigu was quiet now. For the first time in Bi De’s life, he had known annoyance at his Great Master for teaching her that song.

The previous volume (to be split into two parts upon official publication) ended with quite an emotional roller-coaster. The fact that this one has far lower stakes feels like there's a vacuum of sorts. Kind of like how I felt playing video games the day after exams, and remembering that I'm no longer doing it to put off studying, which felt strange. In book two we start during late winter. Spring is around the corner and Jin Rou plans to expand the fields to grow more rice, wheat, and everything else.

These tropes have been given to the earth:

It recoiled. It was vindicated in its distrust. The other dared to offer them tainted energy, the energy that hurt it! It fled from the other, and rejected it's touch. It fled deep, and dispersed, ready for another bout of pain. As I noted, it's long, and so the fact that there are about 70 errors in it (that I noticed) makes it only average in terms of needing editing, proportionately. If anything, it's a bit better in this regard than the first book, though there are still a good few excess coordinate commas, occasional problems with dialog punctuation (especially at the end, when we get several instances of the issue that I saw a lot of in the first book, where the dialog tag is punctuated as a separate sentence), and a sample platter of other common issues: dangling modifiers, missing past perfect, noun/verb agreement, fumbled phrasing, homonym errors, apostrophe placement, and simple uncaught typos. Still, they're no more frequent than in a lot of other books these days, and from what I can tell, a good deal better than most other books in this genre, which are frankly inept. I didn't like the humor. Or rather, whatever humor I did like was not enough to make me like the book as a whole. It was terrible! Why hadn’t he run off? At least he would have gotten to have fun instead of standing around like this.

A note about Xianxia: I admit I have no idea what this word/genre actually means beyond that it's a type of Chinese adventure story. Contextually, it means something with noble heroes battling for supremacy in deadly duals against man and beast alike, all searching to be the best and bloodiest. But I can't vouch for it that I understand it beyond the internal clues of this story. I'm not sure if it would have been more engaging if I knew more of the genre or not. Father was always very happy to teach him. There had even been a big conversation about what food he would bring and how he would enter the village. Xian thought it was a bit dumb, but Chun Ke and the sleigh were fun. But it did not trust it. It felt.. Like some of the others. The ones that hurt. It carefully examined the power, and consumed it. How odd. How curious. The connected one was truly mysterious, to make it so even this did not hurt.The "pacifists are the best fighters" trope is one I never liked, and sadly it's part of this story too. The protagonist doesn't want to fight or become stronger, but rather work on his farm and have a peaceful life. But it just so happens that working on his farm gives him amazing Chi powers and makes him a much stronger fighter. I know it's partly meant as a joke here, but it's yet another thing I didn't find funny. In our society, which praises peacefulness, it is a common (and contradictory) fantasy that being peaceful leads to combat strength. Personally, I think the fantasy of training and getting stronger is healthy, while the fantasy of avoiding hardships and magically becoming the strongest is unhealthy. This was a great continuation for the series as it shifts focus to Tigu and Cai Xiulan's participation in the Dueling Peak's tournament. The pacing felt a little slow in certain parts, specifically dealing with Bi De's crystal, but overall this volume covered a lot of ground.

This book was easily the most joyful book I have read in as long as I can remember, and I honestly consider it to be an absolute masterpiece. This is it. The cultivation book I have been waiting for. While I like the genre I almost always feel like something is missing. Joy. Happiness. Cultivation is supposed to be taking in the energy of the world to perfect yourself. Why then does nobody seem happy in those stories? If you can see the majesty of the universe why can't you appreciate it's beauty? Gaining power for power's sake seems kind of stupid to me. Yes it is interesting for a while but there has to be more than that. This book is all about that other. This book is about a cultivator who realizes that he shouldn't live to cultivate. He should use his cultivation to live. He goes against the troupe of cultivators taking from the world to become stronger. This person wants to go off and live his life, be a farmer. He doesn't want to have anything to do with fighting to the death or killing monsters. He uses his chi to help the land and finds purpose in life. Balance.

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Afterwards, they all had gathered around the hearth with warm spice bark tea in hand, listening to Disciple Gou Ren and the Healing Sage regaling them all with stories of their childhood. Tigu and Wa Shi had slid in attempting to hide their rushed search for the gifts they discreetly added upon the great pile.. Those would be exchanged tomorrow, this time, after the solstice festival. The issues with animal sentience in regards to animals-as-food was done badly. In short, the protagonist only eats animals that "can't think", while declaring that animals who can think "are people", as if regular animals can't think. Pigs are some of the smartest animals around, yet the protagonist's decision about eating them basically comes down to whether they can speak or do math. It's ridiculous, and attempts to easily solve a very uncomfortable problem. Once again, it's an insincere fantasy. Bi De stood in his place on the front of the sleigh, his dapper red hat trailing behind him. The wind coursed over his wings as they sped through the tunnel of evergreen boughs laden with the heavy snowfall from the wintery night. Below him Brother Chun Ke and Sister Pi Pa pulled the sleigh to its destination. Chun Ke wore his magnificent horn, to show respect to the original qilin who had pulled the great sage San Ta’s sleigh, while Pi Pa’s red-painted nose was a beacon in the mists, a light that cut through the darkness. After breakfast most people had gone off to do their own thing. Jin had to show the Azure Jade Trading Company people around to get everything set up to ship the rice. The story is told partly in first person but often moves to other points of view, even within the same chapter. Why first person, then? The answer, I think, is the wish fulfillment aspect of it, which is done quite badly here in general: The protagonist reincarnates from our world into a fantasy world, but it seems the author didn't put much thought into why. He reincarnates into an existing person and gains all of his memories, so thi

Jin nodded, bowing again, but then the serious mask broke for a second and Jin winked at Xian as his father started to march forward. The cycles continued as they always did. The occasional tremor here, the odd pulse there. Places far, far away from it. CasualFarmer can write a cozy, humourous cultivation novel, for sure, even if the editing does need another pass and the pacing at the beginning and end could do with some adjustment. It felt warm instead of tearing pain and killing cold. The energy did not leak from their wounds. Or, at least, not from this wound.

I would spare you this pain, but sadly it is all an inescapable part of the curse you called down upon yourself when you so carelessly said: "Good thing it doesn't get any more complicated than that" at the top of the previous paragraph. Gou Ren shrugged. “I can afford it. I got my cut of the cash for the harvest. It's shitloads of money… more than I kind of know what to do with.” Well… that was kind of easy, wasn’t it?” Yun Ren asked his brother as they stared at the corpse of the deer. Jin Rou was a soul who worked for the Cloudy Sword sect as a lowly outer realm sect member. He is beaten badly by an inner sect member, and he takes his leave.