TGCFridays #1: Chapters 1-10

[hopqer]

♫ xinjia'niang, xinjia'niang
hong huajiao shang xinjia'niang
lei wangwang, guo shan'gang
gaitou xia mo ba xiao yang...♪

Newlywed, newlywed
Bride upon a seat of red
Teary-eyed o'er hill and dale
No more smiles beneath her veil

The Story So Far...

(Edit: I snagged some panels from the manhua to help visualize characters!)



Introducing our big-hearted protagonist, Xie Lian, who by the tender age of 20 has done a speedrun of godhood: Crown prince → martial god → tries but fails to save his people from a tyrant → kicked out of heaven → panhandles and collects garbage for hundreds of years → claws his way back up to ascension → tries to fight everyone in heaven & promptly gets the boot again.

(Remember this for later — leading up to his first ascension, Xie Lian rescued a child falling off a tower to the delight of the onlookers but to the consternation of the ministers because he interrupted a ceremony by doing so.)

Our story begins with Xie Lian's third ascension. At this point, all the gods treat him like a joke and are literally placing bets on how soon he gets kicked back to the mortal realm again.

There's a big heavenly groupchat where Xie Lian awkwardly runs into his former retainers, Mu Qing and Feng Xin, now martial gods in their own right and none too happy with their laughingstock of a crown prince.


Mu Qing and Feng Xin

Xie Lian must now redeem himself through meritorious labor (to the tune of 8,888,000 sticks of incense burned in his honor) in order to retain his godhood. So Ling Wen, goddess of literature and head of heavenly HR, sends Xie Lian off on his first quest to investigate a disturbance in the North caused by the rumored "Ghost Bridegroom", a local cryptid who has been kidnapping girls from their bridal processions.

(I love how the gods apparently have an SCP tier ranking system for supernatural forces. Oh the Ghost Bridegroom? That's a Euclid class object. Possibly even a Keter!)

Of course because Xie Lian's reputation stinks, volunteers aren't exactly lining up to help him on this mission. Ling Wen makes a misleading job posting in order to foist the role of providing support onto Fu Yao and Nan Feng, two minor gods and underlings to Mu Qing and Feng Xin respectively. Fu Yao and Nan Feng squabble a lot and have a lot of "my dad god can beat up your dad god" back and forth. Smh boys.


Nan Feng and Fu Yao

The gang posts up at a local temple; Xie Lian recognizes the Feng Xin sculpture holding a bow. What's a Nan Yang temple doing on Ming Guang's turf? They meet a girl called Xiao Ying who managed to escape being used as bait by a party of villagers trying to catch the Ghost Bridegroom for profit. Xie Lian lends her his robe (hers is torn). He wonders why so many ladies come worship at the shrine of a martial god? Turns out that due to an imperial typo centuries ago, Feng Xin's title of Ju Yang (gathering radiance) got written as the homophone Ju Yang (massive manhood). I'm sorry Feng Xin. You're the viagra god now.

Fu Yao and Nan Feng are shocked to see Xie Lian wearing Shinji from Evangelion's DSS choker (actually a "curse cangue", mark of heaven's reproach for his failures). Nan Feng gets Xie Lian a new shirt. They yell at him for eating food off the floor.

The next day, the gang intercepts another fake wedding party attempting to lure out the ghost. They decide it's time for them to take a stab at it themselves. But who gets to be the fake bride? Quick! Everyone turn and look at Xie Lian at the same time but don't make it awkward.

Xiao Ying helps Xie Lian with hair and makeup and the gang sets off up the mountain. A creepy voice starts singing the song above the cut (which I took the liberty of doing a rhyming translation with matching meter you're very welcome), and suddenly the procession is attacked by a pack of wolves and binu (which are just the TGCF flavored lowest grade of walking dead minions don't worry about it).

Xie Lian sends Fu Yao and Nan Feng off with the procession and dispatches these low level minions with his magical bandage weapon, Ruoye. Then a mysterious handsome stranger shows up, and all the beasts and monsters are terrified of him. Sexy stranger takes Xie Lian by the hand. (This is where the manhua starts, btw!) He crushes magical booby traps under his heel like they're nothing. Who could this sexy pair of legs be? Xie Lian wonders, squinting beneath his veil.



(Guys if you read MDZS you'll recall how MXTX could not stop waxing poetic about LWJ's eyelashes? How she never missed an opportunity to describe them from every possible angle? Well, Hua Cheng's legs are the new LWJ's eyelashes. In chapter 8, we get a loving description of how long they are, how the tight black leather of his boots wrap around those calves and what a joy it is to see him move. It looks to me like this is missing from the English translation? No one should have to miss MXTX being extra about Fafa's legs.)

Xie Lian and sexy legs Hua Cheng arrive at a mountain shrine to the god general Ming Guang, and before Xie Lian can even get a proper look at him, Hua Cheng promptly bursts into a cloud of silver butterflies.

Xie Lian enters the temple to the putrid stench of death and finds the corpses of all 17 missing brides lined up inside. He hides himself among them just in time; the ghost enters the temple and starts flipping the veils one by one like the classic hiding in the restroom scene while the bad guy kicks open the stalls. Xie Lian and ghost exchange blows, but they are interrupted by the party of villagers from earlier who tried to use Xiao Ying as bait. Ghost vanishes in the confusion.

The village men start molesting corpses (ew ew ew); as Xiao Ying begs them to stop, someone throws a rock. The men pursue the rock thrower into the trees only to be met with the horrible sight of 40 soldiers strung up and bled to death. Fu Yao and Nan Feng note that this looks like the handiwork of a Keter class near extinction rank demon known as the Green Ghoul. Xie Lian mentions the powerful stranger with the silver butterflies he met earlier. Fu Yao and Nan Feng immediately decide that this is above their pay grade.

The village men catch the rock thrower, a youth covered head to toe in bandages. They decide to scapegoat him, pass him off as the captured Ghost Bridegroom and collect their bounty. Xiao Ying begs them not to, saying he's just a disfigured, mute orphan who lives there.



Deducing that the Ghost Bridegroom must be hiding among the brides' corpses, Xie Lian, Fu Yao and Nan Feng rush back into the temple only to find it empty. The trio hurry to stop the walking corpse brides from attacking the villagers. Xie Lian manages to corral them using Ruoye, his magic bandage weapon.

As he fights the corpse brides, we go into sports anime slow motion while Xie Lian opens the godly groupchat and gets the story from Ling Wen: Before he became the martial god Ming Guang, General Pei, an incorrigible womanizer, had a fling with an enemy lady general named Xuan Ji. Xuan Ji grew extremely jealous and, you guessed it, became the Ghost Bride. So the culprit was never a ghostly bridegroom kidnapping new brides for himself after all but rather a god's jealous ex-lover trying to get his attention.

Chapter 10 wraps up just as Xuan Ji herself shows up.

Major Players

• Xie Lian —
  
  Erstwhile heir to the throne of Xian Le. Refurbished god who eats food off the floor is up for anything.


• Ling Wen —
  
  Goddess of literature. Proof that HR works for your boss and not for you. Always online.


• Mu Qing —
  
  Titled Xuan Zhen. Martial god of the Southwest. Former retainer to Crown Prince Xie Lian who worked his ass off to ascend to godhood.


• Feng Xin —
  
  Titled Nan Yang. Martial god of the Southeast. Former retainer to Crown Prince Xie Lian who due to an old typo is now worshiped for his virility.


• Fu Yao —
  
  Junior official under Mu Qing. Got volunteered to help Xie Lian catch the bride snatching ghost.


• Nan Feng —
  
  Junior official under Feng Xin. Got volunteered to help Xie Lian catch the bride snatching ghost.


• Xiao Ying —
  
  Young woman who was almost used as bait to catch the bride snatching ghost.


• General Pei —
  
  Titled Ming Guang. Martial god of the North. Infamous womanizer.


• Xuan Ji —
  
  An enemy general who fell in love with & was defeated by General Pei. The real identity of the bride snatching ghost.

Reading speed
How we doing at the current pace? Too fast? Too slow?

Looking back, I probably finished Scum Villain in about a week. So if we do want to pick up the pace at some point, I am not opposed to it!

Q&A
Which version/translation are you reading? Are you seeing any inconsistencies, any points you are confused about? Please ask away!


See you all next week (Dec 13) for chapters 11 to 23! (Adjusting our reading schedule slightly because ch 23 is the end of a title group.)

Comments

[semiotic_square]

Thank you not only for putting this together but also for putting up that awesome (and hilarious) summary!

If the two "subordinates" aren't actually their bosses in disguise, I will eat every single one of my hats. From the two of them and their whole "oh, you knocked a building on me, oh, it was you?????, oh, um, maybe it's okay, except it's definitely not, I mean, what, I'm going to leave in a sudden huff" schtick I am getting exactly the same kind of peak tsundere energy I always got from Jiang Cheng in MDZS. And they're the two who ~just so happen~ to have rebellious subordinates who decide to go help out? I see you, Feng Xin and Mu Qing (not that I can actually tell the two of them or their subordinates apart yet... but still, I know that vibe!). Even if it's not actually them, I 100% guarantee that they sent those two subordinates on purpose and just really heavily emphasized to them to pretend that the bosses weren't involved at all. (Regardless of which it is, or even maybe none of the above, I love both it and them.)

I feel like I can't really comment on Mr. Sexy Legs yet. I just mostly thought that interlude was kind of odd? I was wondering for a while if that was the bridegroom, only for the narrative to assure me it wasn't, but whoever it was and their presence seemed super weird at that moment. Still, I'm excited to see where he and his legs go from here!

I feel like all the men we've encountered so far that aren't part of our main cast are just straight-up trash. It was sooooo gross when they were all like "heh heh these ladies are dead so they can't say no!" I wanted to wash my hands after reading that.

I like Ling Wen so far! She seems like she's competent and nice but not a pushover woman/god.

Xie Lian as a protagonist is also adorable. I love him.

I also love the telepathic group chat of the gods???? That is such a fantastic concept.

Reading Speed: It was fine with me! I'm also fine with picking up the pace a little if others would like to.

Q&A: I'm reading the Sakhyulation translation for now, though I'll switch to the Google Drive one when we get that far.