Devil Venerable also wants to know novel - thoughts [spoilers!]

Novel updates link: https://www.novelupdates.com/series/devil-venerable-also-wants-to-know/
Translations: Mourningcrow

Devil Venerable also wants to know summary:

After obtaining the book, the Devil Venerable discovered that the book described the world he lived in. This book said that after he sacrificed himself for the female lead, the fourth male lead, his silent and loyal subordinate Yin Hanjiang, blackened and attempted to kill her as a sacrificial offering for his lord.

Devil Venerable Wenren È: Yin Hanjiang, this Venerable wants to know why you wanted to kill the female lead.

Yin Hanjiang was silent.

Wenren È: If you refuse to speak, this Venerable will cut out your tongue and have it with alcohol!

Yin Hanjiang: …

Wenren È: What the hell are you blushing for?!

𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟𓆝 𓆟

I began reading this webnovel on the bus home from school. It was crowded with sticky students, and I was pressed against the window next to an elderly lady in a wheelchair. Despite the less than great environment, I found myself enraptured by this novel. It’s first few sentences were well written and introduced the characters and settings concisely without leaving out too much information. The charaters were likeable with their flaws and interactions. The author has a clear aptitude for writing organic relationships and dialogue as I never once found myself thinking a line was awkward or out of character.

When I first finished Devil Venerable also Wants to Know, I had virtually no qualms about its conclusion or the story it told. I think that it has an interesting take on characters within a pre-written story (and/or isekais) while still using commonplace tropes such as ‘plot-hole fixing’. This story is a real breath of fresh air with how it handles character relationships. The humour delighted me to no end, but I can see why some wouldn’t particularly enjoy it.

The side characters in the book are written with as much care and attention as the main couple are. Each character is given flaws, strengths and small anecdotes about their travels, hobbies or personalities. The author has made each character seem like their own, organic person with a world outside of what the narrative shows us. While the characters aren't realistic, the way they interact and make decisions feels very organic and well thought out, with reasonable/in character thinking to back them up. I'm not quite sure if it's the merit of the author or translator, but I've genuinely come to understand and love most of the characters within this book. They're all very touching and well developed enough that I was able to anticipate and guess how they'd react to certain situations, (with 50% of the time being right, but I don't doubt that was due to my brainless guesses and assumptions).

The romance in this book that makes it a danmei is not all that prevalent within the first 54ish chapters (out of the 82). In fact romance isn’t a big part of the story at all. As a fan of romance sub-plots, I appreciated this a lot but for readers who are looking for a lot of romance, this is unfortunately not the right book. While you could debate that it’s ‘clear’ who the gong and shou is in Devil Venerable also Wants to Know, it’s not explicitly shown to us so it’s up to reader interpretation. I, for one, like to believe that Yin Hanjiang is the gong and Wenren E is the shou. This is just my preferance for a ‘more enthusiastic’, (they are both enthusiastic but Yin Hanjiang has a desperate edge to it, so I suppose the better term would be desperate instead), and younger gong. I think that Wenren E would let Yin Hanjiang do whatever he pleases to him and vice versa; an older, more powerful shou letting his gong do whatever he wants is honestly very sweet and lowkey makes me melt. Speaking of gong and shou, there’s no explicit scenes at all. The most you’ll get is a kiss and a heavily implied scene at the end of the book where Wenren E borrows one of Shu Yanyan’s cultivation books to experiment with Yin Hanjiang.