簪中录 The recordings of the hairpin review

Synopsis

Tang dynasty, during the years of emperor Yizong’s reign, the famous female detective Huang Zixia hid her identity and was involved to solve the cases in the conspiracies among princes to murder the whole family of an official. When she met a handsome but suffering from a curse wangye who suspected if the wangfei was real or fake; when he gifted her with the jade hairpin specially to use for cases, when he wanted the death step by step of his peacefully swimming but drinking human’s blood small red fish; blame turned to hate, love left and wasn’t allowed to beg. In the windy Changan, among all those mysterious cases, the books described the rolling of the bearing of the Great Tang in the genius female detective Huang Zixia’s eyes

• Wangye/wang: the prince of first rank
• Wangfei: the wife of the prince of first rank

Review

This book was about a female detective Huang Zixia. She came from a family of detectives. She got famous when she was 12/13 years; when she helped her father on a case. She was praised by the emperor. Years later, now, her whole family had been murdered. The main suspect was her because the sweet soup she made had poison in it. Also, she was the only one who didn’t die. She went into hiding and sought refuge at Kui wang Li Shubai. Kui wang agreed to help her, if she helped him with a case. She disguised as a eunuch and stayed at his side while helping him solve cases. Because she liked to write with her hairpin and every time her hair would then become loose, Li Shubai gave her a hairpin with a hairpin inside of it. So, every time, she could take out the hairpin from the hairpin to record. Her hair stayed in place.

This is one of the best Chinese written book I’ve ever gotten to read. The language was at a top level. The writing style kept you on the edge of a cliff. The cases were cases inside cases like Inception.

My only complaint is the romance. It was almost non-existent. I didn’t feel the passion that they had fallen in love. Their love was more like, two hurt souls found comfort in each other. If I remembered correctly, they only had one kiss in the whole book. Fortunately, at the end, they got a child.

Aside from the romance, the cases were amazing:

Case 1: Dark spring lantern

Tang dynasty, during the years of the reign of Yizong emperor, the world famous female detective Huang Zixia, in one night, turned from a talented female detective to a murderer of the whole family and also became a wanted criminal from the poster all over the country. Li Shubai was a prince but had a ‘lonely widower which couldn’t be cured’ curse. It was hard to get out of the curse. The emperor decreed a marriage, but the -soon to be- wangfei was suspicious. The ‘widowed’ curse was soon fulfilled.

Huang Zixia fled to the capital for justice. On the way, she met Kiu wang Li Shubai by accident. The Li Shubai who saw through Huang Zixia’s identity promised to help Huang Zixia to re-investigate the murder of her family. In exchange, he wanted her, with the identity of a small eunuch to investigate the fog around him. The wind rose, the spring lantern went black. The rain passed as the fleeting time. Li Shubai and Huang Zixia followed many clues and traveled all around the country. Jiangnan, Saibei, the court and the villages, in a variety of incredible cases, the truth was enough to overturn the entire dynasty.

Review:

This case was about the death of the soon to be wangfei of Li Shubai and the empress’s past. The empress was part of a dancer group Yunshao before she was adopted in the Wang family. The empress wanted to hide her past and killed many people. She thought that the wangfei was her daughter, but the wangfei turned out to not be the daughter of the empress (with another husband). She then realized that one of the people she wanted gone to keep her identity hidden was actually her real daughter.

Not a bad case, it amazes you how everything seemed connected, but you couldn’t see the connection until the end.

Case 2: The lack of the ninth mystical bird related to phoenix

A thunderbolt like karma hit a eunuch of the princess’s residence to death;

An accidental death shocked the civilians and they thought that it was related to the rise and fall of the Great Tang.

A dream actually took away the life of the most favored princess of Great Tang…

Why ten years ago, when the late emperor died, the painting he personally painted would cruelly predict all of this?

Faced with the cases inside and outside of the court, Huang Zixia who originally planned to leave for Shu province to investigate the case of her family, had no choice but to be appointed to a post at the dying of one. Once again, she was caught in the secret of the court.

This time, everything seemed within reach, but in the next moment there was no clues. On critical moment, the first love who she hadn’t seen for a long time, appeared repeatedly and mysteriously in front of her. His distrust and unforgiveness indirectly affected the development of the case and once again pushed the already under pressure Huang Zixia into the bottomless abyss…

Hot and cold, bloody and austere cannot find out about the fate and unable to fathom the will of heaven. Not in least, accidents poured down in torrents on everyone. This time, could Huang Zixia smoothly solve this case and return to Shu province? Could fate let go of those people who tangled in hate and love?

Review:

This case was about the murder of a eunuch at the princess’s residence. This caused a series of other murders, including that of the princess who was the most favorite daughter of the emperor.

This case was my most favorite and the saddest one. It was about three different fathers with different ways of showing their care for their daughters. They had different ways in upbringing, but all three daughters ended in a tragedy. In the end, did the fathers brought them up wrongly or was this really fate? The most surprising thing about this case was that they discovered a painting of the late emperor at a doctor’s house. Everything that happened in the first case and the second case was on the painting. There was more painted on the painting. Would there be a third prediction?

Case 3: Old Hibiscus

Leaving the capital to Shu province, Li Shubai and Huang Zixia stayed together all the way to the south. When they were just a day from Chengdu, they met with a sudden attack. Not only was the escort killed, but the spell was once again efficacious. Li Shubai encountered a secret attack and wandered between life and death. Huang Zixia was struggling, struggling with the murder of her family. She met Yu Xuan (her first love) again here.

Then, she encountered the sixth girl of Yunshao by accident. A love case seemingly related to the imperial family. A master specialized in absorbing souls (hypnosis) associated their fate once again with the Tang Dynasty, making the past more and more blurred. Huang Zixia endured suffering and looked for clues. Unexpectedly, she cracked all the mystery of the case of her own family…

Love, friendship, familial love, because of the existence of greed became particularly charming. However, also because of the existence of the facts, it became unusually ugly. If it was like this, do you still want to know the truth?

Review:

This case was where the love between Huang Zixia and Li Shubai blossomed. Where I was screaming “finally”, to be disappointed again in the next case.

This case began with the supposedly suicide of two lovers. The poison they used to kill themselves was the same from which Huang Zixia’s family died. But, after investigating, it turned out not to be a suicide and somehow the sixth girl of Yunshao was involved. Slowly the mysteries began to unravel and the past came to haunt Huang Zixia.

I have to say that every case, somehow was related to the girls of Yunshao. The first case, the empress was one of the girls of Yunshao. The second case, the empress killed her disciple who she used to taught when she was at Yunshao. Now, this case, somehow the sixth girl of Yunshao was involved in all of this.

The first love of Huang Zixia, Yu Xuan was like a son to the family. So, when they were murdered Yu Xuan blamed Huang Zixia and even sent a letter to the magistrate with evidence that Huang Zixia did it.  He wanted justice.

Case 4: The overturn of Milky Way

The drinking human blood small red fish, the curse which followed Li Shubai for many years, the peerless beautiful empress at the palace, the three parts of the painting that the late emperor left before he passed away, an arranged marriage with Wang Yun and Huang Zixia when she was young…all mystery returned to its origin. All choices all along were unable to follow one’s heart’s desires as it was difficult to fight and escape fate. Eunuch Yang (Huang Zixia) returned to the palace and became the small eunuch at Li Shubai’s side again. And finally, she could live with the identity of Huang Zixia. The murder of her family had been thoroughly investigated. The past suspect also had been investigated. The years went to this step, but there was still no clue of the beginning of the story.

Huang Zixia understood that huge mystery was a world giant palm, was an internecine strife, was the millions and millions of people at all levels of the society, was the power of the supernatural beings. This time, the power she needed to go against to, was so large. And how will she choose; was it to not escape even if the body was torn and the bones crushed or was it to fill the vacancy of the Milky Way with the sun and the moon?

Review:

This was the last case and the big reveal of everything. Every case turned out to have some connection with each other.

When the story began, Li Shubai had a buddha scripting. Every time, a letter would appear on the Buddha scripting. When a letter appeared, something would happen to Li Shubai. Li Shubai closed that piece of paper in a box and then in another box with a very long passcode that only he could remember with his photographic memory. It was impossible for another to get to the paper, but still every time a new letter appeared and then he would be cursed.

He got the small red fish from his late emperor’s father’s body. When, he passed away, Li Shubai saw a fish coming out of his throat. He kept that fish with him all these years

In this case, we finally found out how the letter would appear and who was behind all of this.

Rating:4.5/5. If there were more romance, it would probably be a big 5

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