When I read the scenes I felt like I had been robbed of certain interactions or developments that I had been waiting for. Ultimately, The Radiant Emperor duology focuses on a collection of different characters who are all people that the world does not want to win.

The main cast members constantly one-up each other in terms of cruelty and depravity; just when you think it can’t possibly get any worse, someone shows up with a jar of pickled hands and you lose another shred of faith in humanity. Even though first he’ll have to get over some major trust issues he has probably developed from Ma 😅 But I am choosing to believe he has a happy life or else I will loose sleep over it.It was one of those tactics that worked only as long as the calculation underneath it remained unseen. But that discomfort, and the daily repercussions of being a one-handed man in a two-handed world, was merely the cost of her desire, and Zhu was strong enough to bear it. My theory for all of this was that I found Esen and Ouyang the most compelling part of the first book so, without Esen, what am I left with? But his experience is immensely different to theirs and adds a whole new layer to the fascinating conversation this duology has around gender.

My love for the characters is so exceptionally strong (Xu Da steals my heart as always) and I cannot exaggerate how viscerally I relate to them and how heart-breaking this book truly was.Now all that separated the Zhangs in the east from Zhu’s own kingdom in the west was a stretch of flatlands in the curve of the mighty Yangzi River as it wound its way to the sea. And even when we start to unravel this hatred and glimpse his grief, it is an inescapable burden that he carries across his back as his pain turns in on himself and consumes him. There are many ghosts that haunt the characters of this story, there are many torments that the world wounds them with, but the most fascinating element of this discussion around pain is when we witness the pain the characters inflict upon themselves. I cannot believe that I am saying this, but I almost think that this duology should have been a trilogy.

I would rather be received face-to-face by my equal than by his honorable wife speaking from behind a curtain of propriety. the plot itself was so well executed - the political machinations, the scheming, the betrayals, all the good stuff.I loved how every new circumstance was solved in a completely new fashion, making you curious about what they were going to come up with next instead of bored by the constant battles. Despite that, I was rooting for her to win because compared to Ouyang and Baoxiang, she was considerably better. That was Xu Da’s unmonkishly tall frame, his joyful stride that of a young man eager to taste the world. Uyghur wasn’t a world away from Mongolian, which put Zhu in mind of the eunuch general Ouyang and his flat, alien accent when he spoke Han’er. I think it’s truly a remarkable feat to keep one’s readers guessing until the last chapter of a five-hundred page tome.