Illusions, Lies, Truth v5
parallelsfic gifts are live! I received a lovely Mayonaka no Occult Koumuin fic called Reading Abe no Seimei's Diary that includes a lot of small details that I adore. (I actually didn't shake gifts this time as the date kind of crept up on me... I kind of feel that made getting the email notification of my gift even better! What a lovely thing to wake up to~)
As for the fic I wrote, I'll be posting it here after reveals in a week or so. :3
I'm playing through Fire Emblem Three Houses sooo slowly. 50 hours into the game, and I'm not even halfway through... but I'm enjoying it a lot. The supports are pretty fleshed out, making the characters quite endearing. There are a lot of character interactions that have been making me flail, resulting in me taking tons of screencaps in case I want to use those tidbits in fic. I wonder if I'll ever get around to a 2nd playthrough... Hopefully if I do, it'd go a lot faster than my current one!
Now, this is also one reason I haven't finished the game yet! Illusions, Lies, Truth v5 was released this week! \o/ It's been over a year since Yu Wo released a new book. She's been absent from online spaces too, which was quite worrying. She does seem to be back and feeling better though, stating in the afterword of this book that maybe this break after having written for more than ten years was something she needed. I felt she returned with a strong entry! This book made me grin and laugh out loud tons of times while adding to the mystery and horror. I felt the first case Human Doll Contract established many of the main characters, but we still didn't know them that well, while the second case, In the Name of God, and this case about Jiu Ge are all about fleshing these characters out. I'm glad to see things from the first two volumes being revisited here.
Lin Zhixiang is the first of this volume's character introductions. I love the screenname she uses, though I don't know how that pun could possibly be translated... It's also great to see her continue to show up in the series.
Lu Yang's mother, Lu Le is introduced in this volume~. I love how we get to meet both of Lu Yang's parents, and how they're very involved with the story too. It's nice having parents involved with the story. Lu Le is quite the character. Makes me wonder how she and Liu Yishi got to know each other.
The last of the character intros in this volume is policeman Hu Lican. He actually doesn't have much of a role in this book though. XD
The table of contents got fancier! :O
There are also fancy title pages before each chapter now. :OOO
The summary on the back of the book details some stuff that didn't happen in this volume, so I assume it's part of the next one. :'D Yu Wo also said in the afterword that this might be a 2 or 3 volume case. A 3 volume one would be a first for ILT! I'm thinking that it's probably needed, since this volume doesn't get very far with its namesake, Jiu Ge, until the end of the volume (and then it ends with a cliffhanger). I did enjoy the slower pacing though, as it allowed for a lot of interaction between the characters and for characters other than Jiang Ziya to be developed more. Like, we got to follow Fu Taiyi too! It definitely feels different following him around for part of the story. Lu Yang also got quite a chunk of the story.
And now for some more spoilerish thoughts~
Jiang Ziya has gotten so good at bullshitting, hahahahaha. He can consider it a special skill now, pft. I can't believe he's been learning from Hold Keeper???? First, he BS'd his way through with the angel's background to get Jian Zhi's grandma to accept him. Then, he BS'd his way through with Lin Zhixiang to convince her that she can talk with her brother as long as she's three steps away from him. Ziya... you've grown! Though it does make me sad when he felt he needed to lie to Lu Yang about having a headache since he couldn't let Lu Yang see the strangulation marks around his neck given to him by Jiang Jiang....
Jiang Jiang was so scary. ;____; (And what is up with the red dress? And... Jiang Jiang knew Lu Le's name? There has to be something iffy with the car accident. And I feel the same as Ziya... Xiao Xue is so much more trustworthy!)
Lu Yang. Gah, Lu Yang was so worried that he scared Ziya off with the mission, when Ziya was instead trying to keep Lu Yang from finding out what Jiang Jiang had done to him. Lu Yang seems to have had a dream about Slay's past? (Probably something like the events of the Sword Name side story) He woke up with tears on his face and immediately called his dad and mom to see if they were alright, until he realized that Slay was also family and it might have been Slay in trouble instead.
I'm glad to see Lu Le (Lu Yue?) in the story! She's quite the character, gosh. Haha, and all the hair rubbing~ Go, go mess up Lu Yang's model like hair~ (I grinned so hard when Ziya did it later and Lu Yang just went, pfft, I didn't spend much time on my hair today because my mom keeps messing it up anyway). These two friends. They like to mess with each other so much. XDDD
Oh, and this brings to mind that they're pretty much godbrothers now, haha! What Lu Le wants, she gets. The hug she shared with Ziya at the end after everyone's near death experience was so touching. ;___; Ziya has more family now~.
Ziya and Lu Yang messing with each other, calling the other "little brother" was So. Much. Fun. Ziya is actually older though, I think, by 20 days. He's so proud of this fact, haha.
Slay. Omg, Slay. It's been kind of a running joke, I feel, about Ziya trying to grab Slay and Lu Yang wishing he could touch Slay, and Ziya one day powering Slay up so much that he becomes tangible? Well, the story started with Slay acting on his own a lot more, like when he zoomed ahead of Lu Yang, and also broke Lu Yang out of the dark aura by using the hilt to land in Lu Yang's hands, though he flit off as soon as Lu Yang woke up.
And then Slay actually became tangible at the end. l;kajdf;asdjf;lasdjf And then the story ends??
Haha, all this time, and I haven't even touched upon Jiu Ge. Si Ming is a cutie (and softie), truly. And able to bear so much pain. ;___; I did find something weird though. When Ziya meets him for the first time in this book (and is startled until he gets the message), Si Ming messages him and tells him that he can't speak. I assumed that he can't speak at all because of his injuries and always communicated through text instead... but he speaks later on? In chapter 5 when they set off to save Taiyi together, he speaks just like that, and Ziya doesn't even comment on it at all. I don't know if it's an error or if there's something up with that. I hope it'll be addressed.
The angel only showed up in the prologue, when he's also mentioned in the synopsis (something about healing powers?) so I wonder if he'll have a larger part in the story in the future. Yu Shu, House Keeper, and Hold Keeper had a much smaller role this time, though they did all show up. Same for Jiang Qibing, though I guess he already got his story told last time. I'm more curious about Jiang Yu. I hope she'll get a larger part to play in the future.
Speaking of larger parts, Lin Zhixiang became Lu Yang's disciple~. And she has powers too, and can either curse or bless someone... She has been cursing herself all these years. I feel that she can become pretty powerful. The scene between her and Fang Da both realizing that the other person had to be a newbie just like them was A++++. Jiang Ziya tried to say he was a newbie too only to be reject. XDDDD Come on, Ziya, to these people, you're not a newbie at all!
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