Lord Seventh (Qi Ye) Danmei Novel Review

This is a review for Lord Seventh (七爷/Qi Ye) by priest.  I read this through a fan translation by Huang “Chichi” Zhifeng on Chichi’s Dives.  Huge kudos to Chichi for their amazing translation work here, which has made this as-yet-unlicensed title accessible.  Consider buying Chichi a coffee here in thanks.

The summary of the novel from the translator is:

Please note that all reviews aim to be spoiler-free, while analyses often contain spoilers.

Summary

Unfortunately this is my least favorite priest novel to date, with a romance that didn’t land for me and a main lead whose existential ennui suffused the plot too much for me to get deeply invested. This was also the first priest novel I read, and I almost didn’t pick more of her work after reading this.  I’m really glad I did, though, because Guardian is one of my all-time favorites and Stars of Chaos was an absolutely wonderful read for me.   On the other hand, I very much wish I’d read this before watching Word of Honor, which is a TV adaptation of the sequel of Lord Seventh (Qi Ye) based on the novel Faraway Wanderers. The additional context and backstories of the character from Lord Seventh would have added to my immediate enjoyment of Word of Honor.

Romance and Main Characters

The main reason Lord Seventh fell flat for me was the romance.  In Lord Seventh, the young exotic hostage Wu Xi somewhat understandably develops a childhood crush on the polite but enigmatic Jing Qi.  Over time that develops into something more resembling an obsession, where Wu Xi shows his growing affection by threatening, bullying, and attempting to assault Jing Qi.  This is delivered in a relatively lightweight way; Jing Qi views this behavior as annoying and childish displays, not as meaningful threats.  He dismisses Wu Xi and keeps him at arm’s length through most of the story.

Jing Qi, the POV character, spends most of the novel filled with existential ennui.  This makes a lot of sense given the setup of the story and other plot elements, but when it comes to his relationship with Wu Xi it didn’t resonate for me. Rather than a slow burn or developing feelings over time, it seemed like Jing Qi mostly condescended to Wu Xi.  Jing Qi appreciated Wu Xi’s devotion in contrast to another key character and previous love interest, but truly the bar there was set very low.  By the end of the novel, I believed that Jing Qi cared for Wu Xi in a certain subdued way that never rose to the level of romantic love.

Secondary Characters

The secondary characters in Lord Seventh are quite well depicted.  Helian Yi is a complex antagonist.  He is deeply flawed and also at times excruciatingly sympathetic.  Zhou Zishu is a side character of deep moral ambiguity who is so interesting that priest wrote a sequel featuring him as a lead.  Overall the secondary characters sometimes carried the whole novel for me.

Plot

Lord Seventh is mostly a political novel with some supernatural elements.  The supernatural elements are mostly a set up for the characters and plot rather than being interwoven throughout, so I think it’s fair to characterize this novel’s genre as political.

However, the political machinations of the plot were muted.  I usually love complex political novels (both in danmei such as Ballad of Sword and Wine, and in other genres).  In Lord Seventh, however, the readers get very little access to the actual politics. They often happened in the background, without the reader’s knowledge.  I do think this was an intentional narrative choice driven by the conceit of the novel and the primary POV character.  Jing Qi knew in advance much of what was going to happen, and he deliberately wanted to seem uninterested in politics to preserve his safety.

Glossing over the political maneuverings did align the reader more closely with Jing Qi’s POV in some ways.  Unfortunately even if it was a clever way to represent Jing Qi through the narrative structure, it ultimately also wasn’t that interesting to read.

Worldbuilding

The world building felt flat to me in this novel.  The clear focus was on the characters, and priest relied on a typical political/court system as the backdrop.  The politics, court system, geography and landscape all felt pretty cobbled together for me, only coming in to focus when it served the story before fading back in to the background.  This was true as well for the supernatural elements of the story.  These elements created a really interesting setup, but then were mostly forgotten in the course of the rest of the story.  They were not frequently revisited though, which might have been fine with a stronger plot, but it didn’t work for this book.

Writing Style & Translation

I love priest’s prose and this novel was no exception.  Even if I found the main characters and the plot somewhat lackluster, I really enjoyed priest’s descriptive styling as well as the integration of poetry and literary references into the book.  Her ability to paint a scene with words is superb.

Additionally, the translation by Chichi was top-notch.  It maintained the flow and style of priest’s writing very well, with excellent footnotes to help illuminate the literary and cultural elements.  The translation may have been my favorite part of this novel.

Spice Level

I don’t know how to rate this.  2.5, I guess?  There is actually one very short explicit description of sex between the main characters, more than I’ve seen in any other book by priest.  But it’s very short and limited, and somehow not all that spicy.  Guardian and Stars of Chaos by priest felt sexier, despite both being entirely fade-to-black.