Shattered Lands

Painting the Mists, Book 8

By: Patrick Laplante

Narrated by: Adam Verner

Length: 16 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

Sabotage is an art. Cha Ming plans to paint a masterpiece....

A war between angels and devils is in full swing, and it’s a war Cha Ming can’t avoid. To deal a pre-emptive blow, he journeys to the South. His mission? Infiltrate the Wang family. Incriminate it. Then break it.

Back in Gold Leaf City, Wang Jun is in a neck-and-neck competition with his brother. He’s given up on fairness and will use any means necessary to win. Hong Xin and her courtesans are helping him from the shadows, but as head of the Red Dust Pavilion, she has her own worries....

Meanwhile, a dark creature has escaped its ancient prison. It devours everything in its wake. Feng Ming and the old Sea God Emperor fight to buy everyone precious time, because this time, the plane itself is at stake.

©2020 Patrick G. Laplante (P)2020 Podium Audio

Another good one

I'm still enjoying this series, eight books in and that's a pretty good accomplishment .

why??

why in the seven hells did the editors leave the Yama segments in these books?? it is just a lazy device to drop pop culture references and talk about politics. when you think about the reasons an individual might immerse themselves in 20(ish) books worth of Asian style cultivation, does any single reason seem parallel or consistent with the desire for politics or the authors opinions on other people's works? otherwise, the books have been fine so far. could probably be named "a series of fortunate events" instead of painting the mists, but that's hardly uncommon in this style.

Wtf is wrong with this author?

I know he likes to make stupid little jokes and push politics in weird, unnecessary ways. But what did he think he was accomplishing by trying to make an idiot joke out of blackface in one of his mostly filler book? It comes off as though he is trying to push some weird agenda in a pathetic attempt to be subtle. This isn’t the stage for that and he doesn’t have any direct stake in it. Write you masochist Wuxia and shut up about systematic racism that doesn’t touch you.

And Chi Ming acts like a complete hypocritical bully after all his bs about being understand of others’ situations because of a ridiculous and unilaterally nonsensical decision he made. What a tool. He also pushes this they are just following orders justification that again is ridiculously hypocritical.

I would really hate to be a main character in this guy’s series

At least in this book he didn’t stall or destroy Cha Ming’s cultivation, so I guess that’s something. But why do you hate Hong Shin so much. The poor girl wants nothing more than to be free and help her lover yet from the break up till now the writer has done everything in his power to take away the girl’s freedom. She’s trapped by her own incompetence, then trapped at a bar where she’s mistreated, then manages to find a bit of freedom only to get trapped by the red dust pavilion. Then she frees herself from the people in charge only to be trapped by the role of leadership and saddled with people she honestly didn’t really want to be in charge of. Then she gets free from that and just when we’re thinking hong shin is finally free and strong enough to do what she wants you send people to kidnap her and cripple her cultivation, destroying everything the girl has worked for and then putting her in the exact same position that she was trying to avoid as a hostage. It’s like this writer loves all his villains and prefers to watch all his heroes suffer. The only hero that doesn’t suffer more than he has to is Fang Ming and that is because by his very nature the world wants to help him. Everyone else, it’s only a matter of time before they too are made to suffer or become a slave or lose their progress. He really seems to enjoy that last one a lot.