[This post is half reminiscence and half praise of the book, just to give you a heads-up. Anyway, on with the post.]
[Just to note that I read the Thai translation, which transcribes all names and honorifics in Tae-chiew dialect. I will be using the Mandarin names in this post just for ease of the readers looking up more info, and I apologize in advance if I get any names mixed up.]
In my previous post on Cang Hai, I wrote about how I wasn’t that impressed by my gateway novel into wuxia. Although I enjoyed the books, I thought that maybe wuxia isn’t for me. It wasn’t until I found this one book that changed it completely.
That book is the first novel in the Xiaoli Feidao series, Sentimental Swordsman, Ruthless Sword.
I can’t remember exactly how I found the book. I do remember that I was finishing up the final volumes of Legend of the Condor Heroes and was roaming my university’s central library. On the old shelves that smelled of old wood, I found a neatly arranged series of yellowed books with the Thai title of the series, roughly translating it to Might of the Flying Dagger or something like that.
The thing is, I didn’t know if I picked it up because it looked interesting or because my dad talked about it while I was reading Condor Heroes. My dad was sixty at that point, but he still remembered the protagonist of this book he read during the summer breaks when he was 10-something years old.
Xiaoli Feidao was written by the Hong-Kong born, Taiwanese novelist Gu Long. His writing style is very much similar to Ernest Hemingway (IMO) and his characters are unique, with extreme traits that make them memorable, as I’ve wrote in my post about his other work, Lu Xiaofeng. I don’t know about his personal life, but man, I love his books.
Anyway, despite my dad having not remember ever watching even half the movies he watched with me before, for some reason, he remembers Gu Long’s protagonists very well. He told me stuff about Xiaoli Feidao’s protagonist, Li Xunhuang, and that might be why I picked up the book. Or that might be why I still tried to finish the book after initially getting really confused by the prose.
Xiaoli Feidao follows the protagonist Li Xunhuang and his cycle of getting wrongly accused of things and clearing his name with the help of his friends. One of them is a mysterious swordsman who only knew how to stab people’s necks, A-Fei. The other is a young woman, Sun Xiaohong, who fell in love with him. Okay, that’s an oversimplification of the story, but that’s how it goes.
Li Xunhuang was best known for his signature Little Li Flying Dagger, known as the fastest dagger that never misses, unmatched by any in the martial arts community. Prior to the story’s start, Li Xunhuang gave up on his love interest, Lin Shiyin, to repay his sworn brother’s kindness. After Lin Shiyin married his sworn brother, Li Xunhuang drowned himself in alcohol and women to cope with the heartbreak.
After a long period of retirement, Li Xunhuang returned, now battered by alcohol and a chronic cough. He encountered A-Fei walking in the snow and befriended him, developing some kind of bromance. And the story went from there.
I could do an entire post about A-Fei and Sun Xiaohong. But I guess I’ll just write a little on each of them.
A-Fei is my first (and only) wuxia crush. No joke, that guy is charming as hell, not in the sexy kind of way but in the mysterious, tragic kind (not the healthiest crush to have, I know). I can’t find the original blog post I read that analyzes his character, so I’ll just write about what I remember.
In A-Fei’s first appearance in the series, he was walking slowly through the snow, wearing only a single layer of clothes. He had thick brows, large eyes, and thin lips pressed into a straight line. The way he carried himself reminded one of stone; cold, unyielding, and uncaring. He knew nothing of the world, only how to kill his opponent by a single stab of his sword. He was a swordsman filled to the brim with pride.
In contrast to his coldness, his love is pure and selfless. The tragedy was that he fell in love with a manipulative woman, Lin Xian’er, who almost costed him everything. Li Xunhuang said that it was like seeing a proud swordsman turning into an obedient puppy. In the end, A-Fei managed to regain his sense of self back, and found his reason to live again. His signature line was this one he said to Lin Xian’er: “Looking back, I do not even know why I was in love with you.” (Anyone who had an ex resonate with that?)
That was what I love about A-Fei. His prideful character, his wordless yet kind nature, and mostly his character development and how he’s written in the series. I could see something similar in Fu Hongxue, one of the protagonists in the later books.
Sun Xiaohong is my favorite and best girl in every wuxia I’ve read so far, and in the wuxia fandom, I think she’s severely underrated. Xiaohong is the foil to Lin Shiyin (Li Xunhuang’s ex). You could say she’s kind of like a modern girl.
In contrast to Li Xunhuang’s selfless, passive nature, she’s a more vocal and open young woman who isn’t afraid to let others know what she wants. Li Xunhuang does not take, so she gives her love to him. Li Xunhuang hurts himself because he has no will to live, and she picks him up and yells at him to stop dwelling in the past. It’s not often that you see a female lead like this in wuxia. And I like her a whole lot.
She isn’t a bewitching beauty or a cunning, extremely skilled martial artist like Huang Rong from Condor Heroes, but she’s a simple, stable, open, and decisive person (plus, she can really hold her liquor). The scenes featuring her aren’t as memorable as A-Fei’s opening scene, but in those simple moments, she really shines. She was what Li Xunhuang needed after a lifetime of betrayal and getting taken advantage of. I don’t know, I think that’s a perfect match right there.
Oh, and I really like that one scene where she told Lin Xian’er(?) something like ‘I don’t have time to cry bitch, I have things to do.’ That’s her whole character in one line, right there.
Sentimental Swordsman is just a really good book. Its got a lively set of characters, its writing razor sharp, and its philosophy reflective of human nature. The book doesn’t feature long, exciting fight scenes, but instead, features well set-up intense one-shot showdowns. If you like that kind of thing, maybe this book will be to your liking.
I am currently read Biānchéng Làngzǐ, the sequel to the book and the second in the Xiaoli Feidao series. Whenever the protagonist Ye Kai mentions anything about Li Xunhuang or A-Fei, I get very excited. And Ye Kai also gets very excited. He said everybody gets excited whenever he told stories about Li Xunhuang. It’s funny because both the characters in the novel and me as a reader felt the exact same way, and I think that’s really cool. It’s something that takes real skill right there.
I might write more about this book if I could reread it. I don’t have access to my university library anymore, and I’m still finding a place to buy the books from. Nevertheless, this book is the top wuxia in my heart, and will always continue to be.
bonutzuu 