Beware of Chicken: A Xianxia Cultivation Novel

Product Information

This book came out of nowhere, and I had a fantastic time with it. I have no idea who CasualFarmer is, but he knows how to write and engaging story and characters.

Well… that was kind of easy, wasn’t it?” Yun Ren asked his brother as they stared at the corpse of the deer. I'm having a really hard time describing this, even in my head. It's an isekai story, though only barely. We learn early that the protagonist is from our world, but few details beyond that he's familiar with Xianxia stories and feels like he is in one. Which allows him to hang a giant nope sign on the future he's currently on and find somewhere to live quietly on his own farm.

It's sweet and wholesome and more than a little blunt in the message that it just spells out on multiple occasions. It's also probably one of the better things being written around here right now, with characters that are all instantly too big for the jokes that they're set up to fill the role of and a world that appears to be more interested in people living kind lives than powerful ones. They’re pretty great, aren’t they?” Yun Ren asked, tapping at the wonderful leather pouch that held the flat pane of crystal Yun Ren cherished. “But they’re pretty pricey too, yanno? And the ones that can record more than just static images are way more expensive.”

Honestly? When Yun Ren thought about Xianghua all he could think was that he liked her. She was a bit weird… but hells, in this madhouse, who wasn’t? She fit right in as far as he was concerned, and was a regular riot when she started on the act she put on as a Young Mistress. And so I thought… Well, there are some things I wanna remember properly and you could teach me how to get some good recordings?” I'm the kind of person who has trouble naming their favorite... anything, to the point I worry sometimes that I may not like anything. It's probably not true. I do remember liking things. I liked books. I just don't remember what those books were. But it does seem that most of the books I liked I either forgot about or in some way grew out of liking them. I hope I will remember this one in the years to come. It felt warm instead of tearing pain and killing cold. The energy did not leak from their wounds. Or, at least, not from this wound.

These tropes have been given to the earth:

That was the way it had always been. Torment and nothingness, for a thousand, thousand cycles. So long, it had forgotten. But the pain. The pain it remembered. The sharpness of it had faded, but it still remained-- that dull, dull ache. Ten cycles became twenty. Twenty became thirty. And the wound...started to stop hurting. Its last piece of what could only charitably called “self” pulled itself out of the diffuse chaos, and mire of grinding pain. It reached blindly for the light, grasping eagerly, desperately for the one that was healing it's wounds. At first, there was bare existence. A mass of conflicting feelings and instinctual reactions. Thought, without thought. Feeling without feeling. The project had come about after Yun Ren asked how the sword, which had no physical eyes, could see things coming. He sat with the sword in companionable silence as the cold wind blew through skeletal trees. From his vantage point on the hill, he could see most of the farm. Jin was with Meimei, pointing out one of the storage buildings to the Azure Jade Trading Company people. He could see them nod along from here. He had no real opinion on the two, honestly, though the story the woman, Chyou, had told was pretty interesting. She had a quite nice voice from what he recalled when she described everything, and he could almost see it in his mind’s eye. An expedition to the south. Something wondrous… and dangerous.

His brother grimaced. “Let's just say I’m glad Jin is handling all that stuff. It's going to be a pain in the ass when I have to do it by myself. Still, I learned a lot, I think.” With Bowu looking up at Gou and Xianghua at his side… Yun Ren’s little brother didn’t look so little anymore. His face was lit up in a way Yun had never seen. The trio looked like a family. A week later and he had a rough approximation; spiraling geometrics shapes that looked like shattered glass in colours so intense it made his eyes water. Wouldn't such a Frankensteinian monster of so many disparate parts be a shambling ungainly mess? You would think so, But strangely this thing works and feels like a single organic whole.

Need some help?

Everybody else was still waking up—they got treated to the ear blasting sound of Bi De’s morning wake-up call. Another began to offer his strength. It was base energy, with no healing light. This one knew not why he offered it, only that he was supposed to. Hesitantly, they accepted it. He was getting a bit worried. Yun Ren would have to go up north and bug the old bastard if he stayed snoozing for too long.

The pain slowly, ever so slowly dulled. He gave everything he had, without reservation. A thought connected them. The preparations for the sleep continued. The other continued to seek them out, and offer tainted energy. It ignored it while prodding at the trees that were supposed to produce sugar. They were supposed to be sweeter than this! the trees upon it were good and evident, so they listened, and prepared with it. It expected pain. The ripping tearing sensation. Like a beaten dog, it cringed and cowered, trying to escape from the agony that was sure to come. Yet it could not move. All it could do was endure. Their connection was saturated with all the pitiful dregs of power they had in that area. Some leaked, it was inevitable, but they needed it now. To give their all, for each other. Indeed, Eighth Master. First time this question has been postulated to Summer’s Sky. Interesting. Approval. Summer’s Sky names you the most interesting Master after the Seventh.”It slumbered, under the blanket of cold. It slumbered in peace for the first time it could remember. The night terrors were kept at bay by the Chunky one, and the Connected One. No grasping hands, and consuming maws bothered its sleep. The issues with animal sentience in regards to animals-as-food was done badly. In short, the protagonist only eats animals that "can't think", while declaring that animals who can think "are people", as if regular animals can't think. Pigs are some of the smartest animals around, yet the protagonist's decision about eating them basically comes down to whether they can speak or do math. It's ridiculous, and attempts to easily solve a very uncomfortable problem. Once again, it's an insincere fantasy. Yun Ren’s eyes widened. “You’re looking to buy one?” His brother had been a little interested before, but outright asking Yun Ren for one? Not many details are known about Rou Jin’s life before transmigrating, which he refers to as the Before, beyond the facts that he was originally from Canada, he had a good relationship with his family and he has had experience working in a farm. Remembering his old life causes him such discomfort that he prefers to avoid thinking about it altogether. The story is a decent twist on the genre (a cultivator works as a farmer, while his farm animals go through the usual Xianxia storyline), but the execution is not good. Also, I think Travis Baldree's narration might not have been a good fit for this story, and may have negatively affected my experience with it. The only reason I finished the book was that it did manage to instill a pleasant, lighthearted coziness in me. Though I did consider quitting a few times.