Ze Tian Ji

by Mao Ni

To pick is to choose. This is a story about choices. Three thousand world full of gods and demons, with a scroll in hand you are able to control the entire universe…

At the beginning of time, a mystical meteor came crashing down from outer space and scattered all over the world. A piece of it landed in the Eastern Continent. There were mysterious totems carved upon the meteor, and people gathered around it wanting to discover its usage. They discovered the Way, and established The Tradition.

Several thousand years later, the fourteen years old orphan Chen Chang Shang left his master to cure his illness and change his fate. He brought a piece of marriage vow with him to the capital, thus began the journey of a rising hero.

Genres: Fantasy, China

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 2014

About the author

Associated Names:
* Mao Ni
* 猫腻

Reviews

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

quit on chapter 574
5 stars thought it was fantastic for the first many chapters, slowly coming down to 1.5 stars "partially disliked" by chapter 574.

The review will be followed by a summary at the bottom, since I and other people might want to come back to this later. If I ever finish the novel, I'll update the summary to go all the way to the end.

Characters: 4.5/5 really liked
Characters are varied and human in a way that I basically haven't seen in xianxia, and are actually above average even when compared to popular western novels. All the major characters are distinct, and after spending a little while with each of them it gets to the point where you should be able to tell who is speaking just by the dialog. However, this isn't all sunshine and rainbows as much of the time of the book is spent bringing in ever more small side characters.

World: 4/5 really liked
The world here is very fleshed out, with many different factions and lots of political intrigues. All the characters that are not in the MC's group have unknown true allegiances and motivations. Honestly, the story gets more and more political, which contributed to me not liking it.

Story: 4/5 really liked then became 1/5 disliked
The story started off as a very cool take on xianxia. The MC still awed the world, fought young masters, broke through in the middle of battle, unearthed heavenly treasures, etc. but there was a backdrop of very powerful existences and political maneuvering from the onset. While most of these stories have the mc work their way up realms or something so that they don't have to see the top tier cultivators until the later chapters, this book just has the mc work around top tier cultivators from the start. The action is all believable and the fights are short and sweet. There's also a good romantic subplot, which is heaven-defying when you consider that this is xianxia. However, the book changes as time goes on. The fights balloon to thousands and thousands of words, and the MC actually loses control of the plot as the story shifts more to politicking and huge world events instead of the MC growing and slapping everyone around his friend group. This is greatly traumatizing to see in a xianxia, because I read xianixa to get high on slapping young masters, and I absolutely am not here to see the MC get slapped around. The lack of control over his own fate compared to other books puts me off, and the snore-worthy happenings of the last 50 chapters mean that I can't bring myself to continue. I had left the dao of books for videogames a month ago, and this managed to bring me back to books for a week. However, Borderlands 2, Valheim, Endless Space 2, and Divinity Original Sin 2 call to me again, and this book cannot hold me back.

Summary:
spoilers lol
Mountain surrounded by clouds is way off this continent.
Ranks are purification, meditation, ethereal opening, star condensation, and divinity.
MC is Chen Changsheng (I know the capitalization is off, but this is how my translation did it and I can't see the name any other way now). Raised by a master Daoist Ji and Senior Brother (something like You Ren). The senior brother is a saint already, despite being only a handful of years older than MC. senior bro tells mc that anyone who smells his blood will want to eat him, and that only saints can resist. this is important later on.
mc spends whole life till 14 reading and memorizing 3000 daoist cannon
mc has terminal meridian problems, so he will die at 20 y/0
this continent from north to south has demons, country of zhou, and southern areas, which are not consolidated. there are also demi-humans somewhere next to the country of zhou also bordering the demons
mc is engaged to number one young beauty and cultivator of the entire world (world and continent interchangeable for now) who has blood of phoenix xu yourong
the mc goes to capital city to end gengagement
xu family spits on him and tries to force him to end engagement before he can state his purpose
he decides to keep engagement out of spite
he follows dao of following his heart
he wants to participate in big exam
due to machinations of xu family he can't get into any academy to go take big exam, and gets placed as first student of 6th academy in the capital, orthodox academy
also there is a huge religion, orthodoxy, which has a pope who is saint
there is tianhai divine empress who is saint of zhou
this orthodox academy rebelled against tianhai divine empress and was exterminated 10 years ago
he's under a lot of pressure
lights up a lit star, farthest in humanity "perfect foundation" as always
never change, xianxia
girl next door comes over, is princess of whole demi-human country
she wheedles him into teaching her
he teaches her, helping her a lot
she enters his school
he also made friends with tang 36, and the author ruins the rest of the book fr readers by telling us that him meeting tang 36 is the second most important moment in human history
wenshui tang clan rich as all heck, as if china and USA were under 1 family
wins competition/exam he wanted to
goes to backroom to meditate, as is his priviledge
really his teacher told him to come here
he grabs hidden diary of ancient badass along with black rock
turns out if you sacrifice tons of people close to you, you can change your fate
he then goes to place full of dank rocks from heaven and comprehends, realizing that even though stars are fixed, they can move closer or farther, so fate was never fixed
he refuses to fix his bad dieat 20 fate by sacrificing
some adventuring in garden of zhou realm
demons have plot
fights demons in there
winds up in desperate straits along with fiance, but neither recognizes the other cuz she has face changing technique and he is blurry cuz she's poisoned and can't see well
they save each others lives again and again
they love each other
they give fake names
they each promise to anull each of their engagements, presumably so they can be together
they find mausoleum of zhou dufu, the big shot human who made this place
they take treasures, and get his OP halving blade technique, with each memorizing half
they realize that there are 10 stones from heaven here too, so this guy was so OP he stole them off of their natural resting spots long ago
he isn't in his coffin, so is he still alive?
they survive
he gives some of his blood to her, she now knows secret
demon they meet, nanke also knows his blood is yummy now too
mc meets up with other saint legend who is surrounded by demons in demon country
this whole demons thing was a plot by human advisor to demons black robe
wanted to kill the people in the garden of zhou and also lure this guy su li in to be killed
mc hands su li a sword he was given before going into the mausoleum, and it is su li's fated sword that he couldn't get the soul of out of garden, but mc already fetched soul while in garden
su li powers up mid fight, kicks butt and runs away
mc defends su li on journey back, since many humans want to kill us (autocorrect, idk how to make it su) li
saint holy maiden of south finds su li, save shim fully
they run off into distance
su li was roadblock to unification of north and south of human world, so that can now happen
hold maiden abdicates position to xu yourong
she realizes that mc is guy from garden of zhou because mc is returning swords that were taken by zhou dufu and put in garden of zhou, and the guy from garden of zhou had taken the 10,000 swords
mc cancels engagement
xu yourong comes by to fight him
they both fight trying to draw, but she concedes and he wins
he realizes who she is
romance~~~~
now they aren't engaged though lol
mc is successor to pope, daoist ji is actually senior bro of pope, and was also principal of orthodox academy who led treason
daoist ji is actually something shang
mc goes to competition on mount something or other
demon lord comes to mountain, tries to eat mc to heal injuries, mc is saved by wang something or other, the dude whos diary mc had grabbed previously.
I stopped here.

[Reader · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really well written for a web novel. However, it’s very long with an often aimless plot. DNF

-Dropped Ch 1146

[Valentina Linz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Para mim, Ze Tian Ji é o sucessor de Harry Potter. E aposto que nunca ouviu falar nesse livro!
Título: Ze Tian Ji (择天记 em mandarim, como é mais conhecido), (Caminho das escolhas em português). (Way of Choices em inglês)

Série de TV: Fighter of the Destiny

Autor: Mao Ni

Língua lida: Inglês. Houve uma mudança no grupo de tradutores, e ainda agora está acontecendo uma revisão da tradução. Para ter acesso, entre no NovelUpdates

Tem em português: Sim, pela Aliança Novel

Sinopse em português traduzida pela Aliança Novel:

Para tomar é escolher. Esta é uma história sobre escolhas. Três mil mundos cheio de deuses e demônios, com um pergaminho de papel na mão você é capaz de controlar todo o universo…

No início dos tempos, um meteoro místico caiu do espaço exterior e se espalhou por todo o mundo. Um pedaço dele desembarcou no continente oriental.

Existiam totens misteriosos esculpidos em cima do meteoro e pessoas se reuniram em torno dele ao querer descobrir a sua utilização. Eles descobriram o Caminho e estabeleceram A Tradição.

Vários milhares de anos mais tarde, o órfão Chen Chang Sheng de quatorze anos de idade deixou o seu mestre para curar sua doença e mudar o seu destino. Ele trouxe o seu voto matrimonial para a capital e assim começou a jornada da ascensão de um herói.


Nessa resenha não vou falar muito de história, e sim sentimentos. Vou falar sim da história, mas nem vale a pena ler…

Não só como leitora, mas também como escritora (frisando muito que sou amadora do nível que sem revisa as próprias resenhas que publica), para mim o sentir é mais importante que personagens, enredo, técnica, grafia. Sou do tipo abandonadora: mesmo que eu tenha consciência de que um livro é bom, se não conseguir me envolver eu vou abandoná-lo. O mais importante não só em um livro, mas em todas as formas de contação de histórias, é como quem recebe é envolvido.

Quer um exemplo melhor disso do que a série Cinquenta Tons de Cinza? Qualquer um percebe que medíocre em vários sentidos, mas foi um sucesso mundial. Isso é um reflexo da mediocridade da nossa geração? Não. Só que o livro tem alguma coisa que faz as pessoas continuarem lendo até o fim e ficarem absortas na leitura. Eu achei uma porcaria, mas li toda a série. Tem algo nele que desperta o leitor.

Um exemplo ainda melhor, que é o que eu realmente quero usar. Harry Potter. É bem escrito, criativo sim, tem personagens interessantes, não é à toa que se tornou um fenômeno. Na minha opinião o único motivo pelo qual alguém não gosta desse livro é pelo meno motivo pelo qual eu não gosto dos clássicos russos: o que não gosto na verdade são dos fans. Contudo, quanto livros possuem a mesma qualidade de Harry Potter, ou ainda superiora, e não conseguiram chegar a esse patamar? Isso é porque Harry Potter tem algo em comum com Cinquenta Tons de Cinza: ambos despertam algo nas pessoas.

Para quem é apaixonado por leitura, ainda mais pelo gênero fantasia, ainda deve se lembrar dos sentimentos que teve lendo Harry Potter. E para aqueles que estão na casa dos 20 como eu, que leram na adolescência, devem se lembrar que quando saíam reportagens e mais reportagens perguntando e sugerindo qual seria o novo Harry Potter. Falaram em Crepúsculo, depois em Jogos Vorazes, mas nenhum deles foi realmente aceito como o sucessor.

Então um dia eu comecei a ler um livro, parei e percebi que a sensação que senti era muito parecida com a que eu lembrava de ter tido quando lia Harry Potter. Então pensei:

Ze Tian Ji é o sucessor de Harry Potter.

Uma pena que na industria literária, na qual só divulga e publica autores de língua inglesa, esse livro nunca vai ser reconhecido como merece. Você nunca vai encontrar esse livro em uma livraria. NUNCA.

E um livro não tem nenhuma relação com o outro. Para começar o gênero, Xianxia, só existe na China. Só são excepcionais quando se tratam de envolver o leitor.
(o resto está no meu blog)

[Stefan Popescu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading @ 712/1251 chaps

Complex characters, politics, underpowered main character. It's a really good novel up until chapter 662. After that things take a really odd turn and setting and characters need to be rebuilt. Still not fully past the WTF moment, but there's still some potential for interesting development.

Main female interest is a mary sue, giving her a bigger role in the story and more depth would have been great.

[Shubhangam Agrawal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent but very rambling and very long... Took me 6 months to finish and slowed down my reading :(

[Girish · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a slow and beautifully written novel with strong first half comparatively weaker latter half with a peaceful ending

[Ivan Pantalla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece

[Aditya Prasad · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Way (or Dao) of Choices. I struggled throughout my second read wondering if I should give it 5 stars or 4. There were many quotes, short parts of some arcs which made it deserve a 5 but overall it seemed lacking. But the end just made it an easy decision for me. It was a clearly rushed ending.

I'll first give a spoiler free review and then start with the spoilers after a proper warning.

==================

I consider myself as someone who treasures time. I find it maddening to do nothing, I am always occupied and trying to multitask so as to extract the maximum amount of value from the limited time I have left.

Anyone who confronts his own mortality will be the same. I have limited time and so much I wish to do. I grow weaker with age and my senses fade, of course I understand how Chang feels. Our dear protagonist is someone who lives seriously. This is refreshing character who I enjoyed getting to know through these pages.

The protagonist of this novel gets many possible love interests the reader might feel interested in shipping. Chang himself is the furthest thing from a player but there are many attractive unique girls in his life - Mo Yu, the dragon, Luo Luo, his fiance, etc. I remember I liked Luo Luo a lot on my first read.

In my second read I changed my mind, about 300 chapters in when the book presented me with one of the most engaging romance arcs of all time. So you get romance in this book, don't you worry.

It is a love story of geniuses who find it hard to find intellectual equals. How external pressure and threats provide fertile ground to quickly build trust. Lots of misunderstandings which are sweet to watch. It is lovely.

I believe art or fiction plays an important role in shaping your values, your ideals. What type of unrealistic romance do you want to pine for? What type of relationship do you want to work towards? I feel this book paints one which really touched me. Since it's about shared goals, a partner in cultivation - someone who also has a Dao they want to pursue to the end. Someone who is capable enough that you can trust they that can grow with you. Someone who was intrinsically a good person, kind, trustworthy, reliable. If you had to pick an ideal to carry around with you as you age. This isn't a bad one to use to personalize your fantasies.

You need to wait till chapter 520 or so to really see the love blossom. It made me tear up some of the plot twists.

But this story is not really about romance. It's strong suit is philosophy. The idea of how you become used to death when it's a constant companion. How even a perfect guy won't necessarily "move your heart". How you need to follow your heart in order to feel free. The conflict between the orthodox view of working within the established system and a person who wants to carve a new path. It tries to tackle fate but just ends up being very abtruse.

It also highlights how munade worldly desires become if death is a constant companion. If people couldn't avoid thinking about the fact they would die one day, they would have much clearer priorities. It talks about what the difference between the young and old are. The kind of choices the world forces you to make, how you watch yourself turn into the kind of practical old men you swore you would never become.

This novel does have the popcorn that we have come to love and expect from Chinese novels, we have face slapping, the trope of the unexpected unset - the underdog winning, the extreme genius etc.

You can meet very vibrant characters in this novel. The father and his heroic son. The torturer who takes his work quite seriously. The lonely wolf. The extremely rich Tang 36. The relationships between the characters are well developed and usually make you feel really invested.

Lots of the puns and other worldplay is lost because of the English translation but it's a nice read. I highly recommend this to anyone who feels chinese novels do not have much to offer in terms of quality literature. Even experienced daoists can try this slow refreshing read.

Do be warned the ending may not be satisfactory. Most of the threads are tied up, but you might feel some foreshadowed developments never happened. It is a sort of open ending which I do not like so yeah. If you can't deal with that then it is better to stop reading sometime after 90% of the book.

Now let me rant with spoilers

===================================== SPOILERS BELOW

Let me show you an excerpt -

In Chapter 289 - If Life Could Be Like the Moment When We First Met (Part Two)

This was the first time that Chen Changsheng would meet Nanke, and this was also the first time Nanke would meet Chen Changsheng. In the future, they would represent the humans and demons and meet many times on the battlefield, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and creating a not at all interesting story that would only cause one to feel exhausted. More than once, Nanke would think back to that morning they first met and would often feel a faint sense of remorse. She would think to herself, if I had been a bit more decisive that day and not listened to any of his nonsense, then maybe I really could have killed him there, and then there would be none of these troubles or stories.

Ok now let me tell you. They never had those "many" meetings and hand to hand conflicts on the battlefield!

This was my main grievance since I spent a lot of time looking forward to it happening. It also proves the author had plans to really flesh out the story. There was also the Grand Liberation Realm they talked about but nothing happened in that cultivation level. The protagonist fails to break into any new level. There is a God that threatens them who is not dealt with. Only one of the girls I mentioned above get closure, it seems implied the other two will keep trying. There are unresolved grudges with the nearby continent. They hint the Black Phoenix (wink) did not actually die! Like sure phoenix.... but what?! is it the squirrel or the goat? I really wonder what kind of ending Mao had actually planned, considering the kind of character he made the young Demon Lord, the way he ended it was sad. Sure Qiu Shan Jun was really made too perfect but he should be given more words!

Overall I wanted more.

I am not going to bother pointing out all the other flaws but for anyone who wants to know why he might have ended it so abruptly below is the best lead I have - https://forum.novelupdates.com/thread...


You know about the boycott against Korean products/services/stars, caused by deployment of THAAD system a while ago. Maoni happens to love few Korean stars, nobody cared in the beginning though, cuz it had nothing to do with his writing skills. But then he updated his weibo, the Chinese tweet, said that "I don't give a fuck about your poor country, even she was a Nazi, I will still love her." This message is considered very inappropriate among reader groups, huge amount of readers dropped ZTJ, he had no choice but to end it.


He also had family issues - it turns out his mother was in poor health. So I can forgive the dude. But it still hurts. There was a lot of potential.

[Ksipe · Rating 1 out of 5]

A boring, uninteresting story about a boring, uninteresting boy.

[Ramzan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masterpiece