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Review: The Assassin Tao Buhuan (刺客桃不换) by Mu Sui Feng
Over the last couple of years, I've noticed a dismaying trend in my responses to new-ish, Western-published genre titles: they tend to leave me disappointed, frustrated, and in the worst cases, enraged enough to write ranty Goodreads reviews. I've begun wondering miserably whether the problem is with me: do I just... hate books now?
Then a book like this comes along, and I realise that, no, it's the children who are wrong.
The Assassin Tao Buhuan is the story of Jiang Yousi (姜有汜), an investigator at the Court of Judicial Review (大理寺), and the titular Tao Buhuan (桃不换), the notorious assassin Jiang Yousi has been tasked with hunting down. (In true historical baihe style, Jiang Yousi has managed to rise to her current position by taking the imperial examinations disguised as a man). We learn quite quickly that the two of them are actually close childhood friends, and have embarked on their current paths — Jiang Yousi taking a position at court, Tao Buhuan joining the most prominent assassin organisation in the empire — as part of a long-running plan to find out the truth behind the mysterious deaths of their families. The novel is nominally structured into five arcs, each dealing with a separate but related mystery, though this somewhat devolves into a confused free-for-all towards the fourth and fifth arcs. The first arc begins with the two of them investigating the mysterious and extremely bloody death of an official responsible for issuing salt certificates (which entitle the bearer to buy government-produced salt) in a particular region.
This novel is the complete reverse of Wen Guan: a relatively little-read, c-list novel by an author of no particular reputation (she's not a complete unknown — looking at her profile, she has a pretty good number of completed works, but none of them famous or frequently recommended in the mainland baihe circles I'm familiar with). I would never have picked this novel up if I hadn't seen an advertisement for its audio drama adaptation. It has many flaws. It's clearly under-edited, with so many typos that even I noticed them. The timeline doesn't really hold up under close scrutiny, and the latter sections smack heavily of the author making things up as she goes along. The world-building is, if I'm honest, rather thin. The assassin organisation that Tao Buhuan has joined is dealt with very lightly, for instance: very little is said about the horrors that being part of such an organisation must logically entail (contra the depiction of a similar organisation in wuxia baihe novel Jianghu Demolition Squad (江湖拆迁队), where the horrific implications are given full and detailed treatment). It veers wildly into court intrigue towards the end, and wraps up rather hastily on something of a logistical (though not emotional) cliffhanger, which the extras only go some way towards addressing. Characters I thought we'd be seeing more of simply disappeared after their arcs, the most notable one being the young female pathologist Jian Jia, whom Jiang Yousi basically hauls off death row to be her assistant. We learn later that Jian Jia was falsely accused of murdering her betrothed; the second arc focuses on identifying the real murderer and clearing her name. Early in the novel, Jian Jia seems to be developing crushes on both Jiang Yousi and Tao Buhuan at separate times, and I was curious to see how it would play out — but Jian Jia disappears completely after the resolution of her mystery arc, and is never seen, heard or mentioned again. In a way, it was like reading a mid-tier Gu Long novel, one that had been barely edited from its serialised form.
Nevertheless, I found this an enjoyable read.
Part of it is because the first two arcs had satisfying, almost Golden Age-style mystery resolutions. You can't go wrong with drawing inspiration from, respectively, Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie, even if the Christie in question is Third Girl. (Note: I'm not actually sure whether the author is familiar with these works). I found the pacing good: even as the story starts to somewhat disintegrate towards the end, the author still manages to build up sense of suspense that drives you to read on in order to find out what happens next.
Importantly, I found the relationship between the leads well-written, and in a way that appealed to me. The author highlights repeatedly how well they know and understand each other, and they also work incredibly well together. An early highlight is when Tao Buhuan manages to poison only Jian Jia, and not Jiang Yousi, when the latter two are sharing the same meal, because she's intimately familiar with Jiang Yousi's likes and dislikes when it comes to food. There's also a running gag throughout the novel that Jiang Yousi can always recognise Tao Buhuan (who is, of course, a master of disguise) no matter who she's disguised as, and how well. This culminates in a scene where Tao Buhuan, disguised as a famous opera singer's maid, invites Jiang Yousi to a 'rendezvous' with her mistress. Jiang Yousi pretends not to realise that Tao Buhuan is disguised as the maid, and starts flirting with the opera singer right in front of her instead (lest you start feeling sorry for Tao Buhuan, I should make it clear that she's usually the one doing this kind of teasing in the relationship). Theirs is a relationship of small acts of intimacy and almost offhanded remarks of affection, which aesthetically I much prefer to overwrought declarations of love.
Yet another small thing that appealed to me: the sheer amounts of genderfuckery by way of cross-dressing. Jiang Yousi spends most of the novel presenting as a man and Tao Buhuan spends at least 50% of page time in disguise as a man — causing, again in classic historical baihe novel style, onlookers to mistake them as a gay male couple. And in one particularly fun scene, Tao Buhuan disguises herself as a young gentleman of leisure in order to attend an exclusive party, and convinces Jiang Yousi to dress up as said young gentleman's new wife — and of course, they turn out to be most adept at pretending to be a newlywed couple.
So it seems that I'm not a particularly demanding reader after all. All I require from a book is that it do one or two things well — and particularly if those are things that appeal to me (and lots of things do appeal to me), I can overlook a multitude of flaws (after all, I learned a lot about storytelling from RTD-era NuWho). It does not speak well of Western genre publishing that I find so many of its recent products frustrating.
I read the Chinese original of the novel on JJWXC.
Then a book like this comes along, and I realise that, no, it's the children who are wrong.
The Assassin Tao Buhuan is the story of Jiang Yousi (姜有汜), an investigator at the Court of Judicial Review (大理寺), and the titular Tao Buhuan (桃不换), the notorious assassin Jiang Yousi has been tasked with hunting down. (In true historical baihe style, Jiang Yousi has managed to rise to her current position by taking the imperial examinations disguised as a man). We learn quite quickly that the two of them are actually close childhood friends, and have embarked on their current paths — Jiang Yousi taking a position at court, Tao Buhuan joining the most prominent assassin organisation in the empire — as part of a long-running plan to find out the truth behind the mysterious deaths of their families. The novel is nominally structured into five arcs, each dealing with a separate but related mystery, though this somewhat devolves into a confused free-for-all towards the fourth and fifth arcs. The first arc begins with the two of them investigating the mysterious and extremely bloody death of an official responsible for issuing salt certificates (which entitle the bearer to buy government-produced salt) in a particular region.
This novel is the complete reverse of Wen Guan: a relatively little-read, c-list novel by an author of no particular reputation (she's not a complete unknown — looking at her profile, she has a pretty good number of completed works, but none of them famous or frequently recommended in the mainland baihe circles I'm familiar with). I would never have picked this novel up if I hadn't seen an advertisement for its audio drama adaptation. It has many flaws. It's clearly under-edited, with so many typos that even I noticed them. The timeline doesn't really hold up under close scrutiny, and the latter sections smack heavily of the author making things up as she goes along. The world-building is, if I'm honest, rather thin. The assassin organisation that Tao Buhuan has joined is dealt with very lightly, for instance: very little is said about the horrors that being part of such an organisation must logically entail (contra the depiction of a similar organisation in wuxia baihe novel Jianghu Demolition Squad (江湖拆迁队), where the horrific implications are given full and detailed treatment). It veers wildly into court intrigue towards the end, and wraps up rather hastily on something of a logistical (though not emotional) cliffhanger, which the extras only go some way towards addressing. Characters I thought we'd be seeing more of simply disappeared after their arcs, the most notable one being the young female pathologist Jian Jia, whom Jiang Yousi basically hauls off death row to be her assistant. We learn later that Jian Jia was falsely accused of murdering her betrothed; the second arc focuses on identifying the real murderer and clearing her name. Early in the novel, Jian Jia seems to be developing crushes on both Jiang Yousi and Tao Buhuan at separate times, and I was curious to see how it would play out — but Jian Jia disappears completely after the resolution of her mystery arc, and is never seen, heard or mentioned again. In a way, it was like reading a mid-tier Gu Long novel, one that had been barely edited from its serialised form.
Nevertheless, I found this an enjoyable read.
Part of it is because the first two arcs had satisfying, almost Golden Age-style mystery resolutions. You can't go wrong with drawing inspiration from, respectively, Edgar Allan Poe and Agatha Christie, even if the Christie in question is Third Girl. (Note: I'm not actually sure whether the author is familiar with these works). I found the pacing good: even as the story starts to somewhat disintegrate towards the end, the author still manages to build up sense of suspense that drives you to read on in order to find out what happens next.
Importantly, I found the relationship between the leads well-written, and in a way that appealed to me. The author highlights repeatedly how well they know and understand each other, and they also work incredibly well together. An early highlight is when Tao Buhuan manages to poison only Jian Jia, and not Jiang Yousi, when the latter two are sharing the same meal, because she's intimately familiar with Jiang Yousi's likes and dislikes when it comes to food. There's also a running gag throughout the novel that Jiang Yousi can always recognise Tao Buhuan (who is, of course, a master of disguise) no matter who she's disguised as, and how well. This culminates in a scene where Tao Buhuan, disguised as a famous opera singer's maid, invites Jiang Yousi to a 'rendezvous' with her mistress. Jiang Yousi pretends not to realise that Tao Buhuan is disguised as the maid, and starts flirting with the opera singer right in front of her instead (lest you start feeling sorry for Tao Buhuan, I should make it clear that she's usually the one doing this kind of teasing in the relationship). Theirs is a relationship of small acts of intimacy and almost offhanded remarks of affection, which aesthetically I much prefer to overwrought declarations of love.
Yet another small thing that appealed to me: the sheer amounts of genderfuckery by way of cross-dressing. Jiang Yousi spends most of the novel presenting as a man and Tao Buhuan spends at least 50% of page time in disguise as a man — causing, again in classic historical baihe novel style, onlookers to mistake them as a gay male couple. And in one particularly fun scene, Tao Buhuan disguises herself as a young gentleman of leisure in order to attend an exclusive party, and convinces Jiang Yousi to dress up as said young gentleman's new wife — and of course, they turn out to be most adept at pretending to be a newlywed couple.
So it seems that I'm not a particularly demanding reader after all. All I require from a book is that it do one or two things well — and particularly if those are things that appeal to me (and lots of things do appeal to me), I can overlook a multitude of flaws (after all, I learned a lot about storytelling from RTD-era NuWho). It does not speak well of Western genre publishing that I find so many of its recent products frustrating.
I read the Chinese original of the novel on JJWXC.