By Eu
My most awaited volume!
Absence Makes the Heart Burn Hotter
Chu Wanning has slumbered for five years since Mo Ran rescued his soul from the underworld. He wakes to find the world changed — and the greatest change of all is to his disciple Mo Ran. Now grown up, Mo Ran is nothing like the callow youth he remembers, and Chu Wanning finds himself drawn to his disciple with a force he never anticipated.
Meanwhile, Mo Ran has at last set aside the misunderstandings of two lifetimes. When his hatred for his teacher falls away, he finds the feelings beneath are not respect between master and disciple, but fiery passion. Yet even as the two wrestle with their own hearts, Mo Ran begins to realize that his world is diverging from the past life he remembers in strange new ways.
After the heart-wrenching volume 3, here’s a sweeter volume 4. Chu Wanning (CWN) is finally back! But before we get to THE reunion, the story takes us to what Mo Ran (MR) did and all the angst he felt during those five long years. Mo Ran had grown. A lot. He’s no longer the unruly teen nor the tyrant Taxian Jun. He is referred to as a zongshi now, very much like how people address his shizun. Seeing all that work and progress and humility on MR is refreshing. It makes me happy to see him become a better person. I’m glad I stuck to this series because now, I’m rooting for him. For them.
In his last life, he had been a destroyer. In this one, he wanted to be a protector.
Then, there’s the reunion. It’s pretty funny, if not embarrassing. The scene feels like both a beginning and an ending. Mo Ran and Chu Wanning settled whatever lingering issues they had between them as teacher-disciple. At the same time, once the issues cleared, they began to see each other differently, more than what they allowed themselves to see before.
Chu Wanning has woken up… and so have his carnal desires. This may be a rather low-tension book regarding cultivation politics, but the high emotion and sexual tension running throughout the volume make up for it. And I am not complaining. I ate every single scene with CWN and MR together. The angst! The pining!
My favorite part got to be the one when the two MC is sent to help a village to harvest. Everything feels so domestic. After all the fighting they did in the previous volumes, I love that, for once, they’re just chilling in the countryside.
For the first time, Mo Ran questions his feelings for his shizun. How his form of ‘hate’ is all a huge tangled mess of love. Took him two lifetimes to figure that one out.
Mo Ran wanted everything. But he couldn’t have anything.
Based on volume 3, we learned that CWN didn’t have a good relationship with his master. Regardless of their past, his master saved him and was also somehow concerned about his old injury. I wonder what that injury or illness was. Does that have any relation to his weird souls?
The latter part of the book shifts to the side couple (couples?). Song Qiutong, Ye Wangxi, and Nangong Si. I’m curious about what kind of sorcery Song Qiutong did to get to Nangong Si’s side when at first, she was on Ye Wangxi’s side. While I love how MR is helping Ye Wangxi, I’m also afraid that it might somehow add to the butterfly effect. I read somewhere that Rou Bou Chi Rou often has HEA for the main pairing, but what about the side pairings?
Also, what’s with Mei Hanxue and Xue Meng? Are they being built up as a side pairing? For some reason, I couldn’t reconcile the promiscuous Mei Hanxue we heard of in volume 2 to the Mei Hanxue who helped seal the Heavenly Rift in volume 3 and the cold young man in this volume. I can only hope that this can be explained in the next volumes.
Series: The Husky & His White Cat Shizun (Erha He Ta De Bai Mao Shizun)
Written by: Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou (肉包不吃肉)
Translation: Rynn and Jun
Cover and Interior Art: St
Available at: JJWXC (the series is currently locked), Seven Seas Danmei (English)
Volumes (English): 1, 2, 3, 4, 5