Before I give my opinion I'd like to make it clear that is put the book aside for about two months (for a good reason too) before finally setting forth and finishing the novel.

Liu Yao is a ravishing novel about chosen family. This was also what allured me. It's packed with beautiful character development, fluffy relationships and a bittersweet love story. The connections between the main characters are incredibly touching. All they have been through is all so well written. Although it's a danmei, you don't really get much out of it.

Onto why I took a break. It's plainly because I began to lose my interest from how LENGTHY everything was. Priest, I'll give it to her, CAN WRITE, there were scenes that had entranced me by how she went with her words, everything she portrayed was so unique. It was like candy to my mind. However this novel felt like the slow burn of slow burns. Halfway through (literally) it felt like I had read all the plot. However more just kept pouring in. After picking it up again, the plot began to interest me once more. That was until the last 10 chapters were nearing. In my honest opinion she should've made everything past them re-entering Fuyao sect extra chapters

Another one of my favorites. At this point, priest can write about people going to the supermarket and I'll faithfully read all 800 pages of it.

Plot:
This story features the Fuyao sect and starts off with an eccentric sect master taking in five disciples, each with their own distinct personalities, strengths, weaknesses and history. The first 30-40% of the novel establishes the found family dynamic. But disaster strikes. Their master is killed and the kids uncover a murder plot and discover a little of the dark history behind their sect. At this point, the oldest of the five is only a teenager and the youngest is a literally toddler. The oldest disciple has to become the sect master.

I felt so anxious for them! As the five try to journey home to the Fuyao mountain, more tragedy happens. The third disciple, our main character (Chengqian), is killed.

This was the moment when the novel came to life for me. The arc leading to Chengqian's death was absolutely heartbreaking to read because of the vivid descriptions of the others. Our other main character, the first disciple Yan Zhengming, goes into a state of helpless shock and denial. The descriptions of his emotions were really heartbreaking because they described the end of his childhood and the loss of his innocence.

Then we get a timeskip of a hundred years. I notice that priest often uses tragedy to further her characterization. In nearly all the novels by her that I've read, tragedy often moulds and matures many of her main characters - especially the idealistic, young and naive types.

The remnants of the Fuyao sect reunite after this timeskip. They're trying to find a way to unlock the seal placed on Fuyao mountain. Along the way, they discover conspiracies and uncover a lot of dark and bloody history. And that's the basic plot. I do wish that the story focused less on the five of them coming together, and more on the tragedy that shaped them and the timeskip...

Review:
This novel was many things. It's a coming-of-age novel that was gripping to read. There was humor and lighthearted back-and-forth among the brothers, and there were poignant and bittersweet moments. As always, priest describes the psychological very well and I'm in love with her characters. Yan Zhengming, the unfortunate boy who was thrust into a difficult and thankless leadership position, has actually grown very well into his role as the leader of a ragtag, struggling small sect, managing to take care of the younger disciples whilst searching for ways to break the seal, but he shows spurts of deep exhaustion, anger, frustration and helplessness. A big thread in the novel is his struggle with his inner demons (the xinmo - literally, heart demons), his sense of powerlessness, anger and insecurity, where he fantasizes about ditching all of them even though he knows he never would.

In the meantime, Chengqian's narrative thread touches on how he moves from a cold, aloof and indifferent view of the world (he literally resurrects as a sort of ice/jade spirit) into someone who feels, struggles and is tied to life and living (partly thanks to the romance subplot).

This novel also felt a bit like a deep dive into mortality and a sort of analysis of the wuxia genre. In wuxia, cultivators often spend their whole life cultivating to become good enough to ascend to the heavens, where one presumably lives happily, powerfully and peacefully for eternity (commented on in [b:Heaven Official’s Blessing 天官赐福 |44283411|Heaven Official’s Blessing 天官赐福 |墨香铜臭|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1551802602l/44283411._SX50_.jpg|66416862]).

In this novel, the entire idea of heaven is taken apart and examined. Many of the antagonists are characters who have experienced hardship, who want to escape to something better, or they chase after the golden fruit of heavenly immortality and use it to justify inhuman acts, etc, but the protagonists' discover the deeply hidden secret of their world: transcending human consciousness doesn't lead to heavenly immortality. Instead, it leads to a state very like Dust in [b:The Golden Compass|119322|The Golden Compass (His Dark Materials, #1)|Philip Pullman|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1505766203l/119322._SX50_.jpg|1536771]- becoming part of the universe.

In every wuxia novel, people become cultivators to escape the pain, powerlessness and suffering of ordinary life. When they become cultivators, they become powerful, and they work hard to ascend to heaven, where heaven becomes the goal that gives meaning to all their actions. Now that the main characters discover that there is no heaven, many of the actions and efforts of the antagonists' and even the protagonists' suddenly become meaningless. In the end, the novel seemed to suggest to me that no matter how powerful one became, there was no escaping mortality, pain and suffering.

It was a thought-provoking read. There was a lot about life and the attachments one forms to life, love, mortality, responsibility, morality, choice... There were some really beautiful quotes in here. I couldn't help but think of Buddhism - it's not the goal, but the journey that is important.

“you are already my unbreakable tether to this world of red dust.”