《阴阳夺命师》

Thank goodness Storytel doesn't just offer audio books. It has digital books too. It curates a rather different list from other libraries. Forgot that I had this in the bookshelf. Opened up《阴阳夺命师》、柿子会上树著 and took my time to read all 1157 pages of it. 

This book belongs to the growing pool of Chinese web novels. Within them, I like the genre of 'xianxia', 仙侠. I like it because these stories usually center around Chinese martial arts, folklore, the supernatural, fantasy and magic. The only drawback, the books aren't usually released in full — they do it chapters by chapters. I could seek them out online, but if it's available as a whole book on an easily accessible library and offline, then I'll read it there. 

This book centers around the supernatural. The protagonist is Lin Feng 林风, a young man in his early twenties whose family gave him away as a child to be raised a Taoist Master of sorts. Apparently he's such a man of 'yin' that he will cast misfortune on his relatives, and all who are near and dear to him. He has been designated to be the next 'Grim Reaper' 夺命师, a taker of souls slated to die. He becomes an unwilling acolyte to the current Reaper named Sheng 生. After a few 'trials and tribulations', this Reaper Master passed, and Lin Feng finally accepts his designated immortal role — a human who'll live for a thousand years to carry out the instructions of the King of Hell, partnering Death in her role, retrieving souls and spirits who have been designated dead. 

我四平八稳的在这草丛之中行走，脑袋上面都是冰冷的汗珠，天知道运行这个步伐，要耗费老子多少阳气，五行八卦，它打乱之后，我并不知道这是什么类型的阵法，可是一直到后面我才恍然大悟，这个步伐被道家所称之为鬼步，所谓鬼步，就是那些魂魄从离开身体乃至到达地府，牛头马面行走的步伐，就叫鬼步，看似简单，但是里面的玄机，并不是大大街上随便找一个人就能够参透的。

因为这是鬼步，一旦迈开，就不能停止，一定要走完圈套的点到的阴阳八卦阵，才能够完全的走出，要不然，如果是体力不支，亦或者是被周围的阴气所侵蚀，那么周围的阴气就会瞬间朝着我袭击而来，到时候恐怕连大罗神仙都救不了我。 

不过这对于我来说，简直就是小菜一碟，这么些年，为了骗口饭吃，我啥都没有学会，这阴阳八卦阵我可是倒背如流，而且有时候老不死的不在，我一个人也会呆在茅草屋里面一天一夜不出门，就是为了研究这阴阳八卦之中的奥秘。 

不一会儿，我也照着那小三的步伐走出了这一片茂密的丛林，而当我以三分钟的速度穿过这一片丛林之后，小三竟然一直站在那里目瞪口呆的看着我，嘴巴还张的老大，看上去一副不可思议的样子。 

“怎么了？干嘛那么奇怪的看着我？我脸上有脏东西吗？”我奇怪的低头问道。 

小三随即反应过来，然后摇了摇头，有些惊讶的对着我说道：“林风哥哥，你的速度好快啊，要不是我熟悉这里的地形，再加上在这里行走不下数百次，我的速度肯定比你慢。”

Lin Feng isn't just a regular human. He's a descendant of the Ghost Tribe which flourished 800 years ago. That explains his raw talent in the magic arts, and easy ascent into being a Reaper 夺命师, instead of being a Yin Yang Master 阴阳师 in the Taoist way like his Master. He's lousy in some aspects of subduing malevolent spirits and ghosts, but brilliant in other forms of magic arts, say, creating magic seals, 结印. 

We follow Lin Feng's journey as a nobody to a somebody, and there's even some sort of character growth and maturity. We witness the ghouls and spirits and humans he deals with along the way. He has an assorted plethora of help, 'brothers' and such. Damn epic. I LOVED IT. 

温婉这才转过头来对着我惨淡的一笑，随即转身说道：“恒古流传八个种族，人族，兽族，魔族，鬼族，灵族，巫族，天族，还有命族，这八个种族以人族为基准，但是他们的魂魄却是不一样的，人族的魂魄幽静善良，透彻，还带有着智慧，是八个种族里面最高尚的一种，而鬼族和人族其实没有什么分别，只不过从一开始，他们原本就是魂，并没有肉身，可以存活在这世间千年，可当时在恒古之后的一场蛮荒大战，导致这八个种族死伤过半，而鬼族的人，也就从此落寞了。” 

What literary value though? LOL The language is reflective of our times. It can be a tad annoying at times. But never mind. The story and its hole-ridden plot are thoroughly entertaining. I can visualize it as a 49-episode television drama series. Or a 2-hour film. There's an element of romance with his boss, Lady Death, who's described as a 'cold beauty', and an eventual happy ending with her, and a daughter. The scriptwriters will have some work to do. Hahaha. 

The typos are so plentiful and laughable. I was going to ignore them, but the typos got worse and worse with each chapter; 150/1157 pages in — I got really irritated. Is it '全套' or '圈套'? The typos were on every page, and whoever typed this, could even use the wrong characters for the protagonists' names, for example, '冷一轩' to '冷意轩' to '冷以轩'. It was like this all the way till the end of the novel. ‘体温’ became ‘提问’ in the same line as the typist typed ‘温度’.

This is obviously not a software issue. This is an eyesight issue. The typist couldn't be bothered to do simple proofreading to take pride in his work. He probably didn't even re-read what he just typed. He couldn't even choose the right words using pinyin. WALAOEH. The publisher didn't hire a proofreader to go through this a second time either. Tsk tsk. I almost wanted to cut the typist some slack to say that he was overworked. But pages and pages of typos told me that this was pure laziness. Terribly shoddy.   

This one takes the 'Best Typo Award' in this book. 
TBH, '离魂症' and '离婚症' are about the same.