默读/Mo Du (Silent Reading) by Priest
Release Date: June 15, 2016
Chapters: 180 chapters + 6 extras (translation complete)
Total Word Count: 541,314
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Synopsis
Childhood, upbringing, family background, social connections, traumas…
We ceaselessly seek and explore the motives of criminals, pursue every faint trace of emotion among them, not to sympathize with them and even forgive them, not to find a reason to exonerate them of their crimes, not to bow before the so-called complexities of human nature, not to reflect on social conflicts, and certainly not to become monsters ourselves—
We are simply looking for a just answer for ourselves — and for all those who still have hope for this world.
Review
I absolutely loved this novel. I’m a huge fan of Priest, I adore her writing and this book is a masterpiece. I have had this on my tbr for a while because I love romantic suspense but the live action adaptation made me pick it up asap.
We have some of my favourite tropes:
✔Crime solving duo
✔Psychologist MC
✔Rivals to lovers
✔Age Gap (7 yr)
✔Cat dads
✔Modern danmei
✔Slowburn
✔Flirting
✔Bickering
✔Luo Yiguo best cat
✔Pan MC
✔Police × Billionaire
✔I can fix him AND make him worse
✔Found family
✔Both Pursuing a straight man and falling for each other
Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou completely stole my heart. Fei Du as a character is so well written. A playboy flirt but having so much trauma owing to an abusive past, he broke my heart multiple times. He is also very intelligent, can easily read people but always hides his emotions under a mask and I loved how he slowly opens up to Luo Wenzhou.
Luo Wenzhou is the chief detective, openly gay, cat dad and one of the best characters. The book is divided into 5 main arcs, each on a different case but tied up together at the end. Fei Du and Luo Wenzhou along with the team (who will all steal your heart) solve the cases. Just when you think you’ve connected the dots, Priest is like, you didn’t connect shit.
“I’ll trust you again, even though you have such an unreliable record, and if you hurt me again… It seems I still won’t be able not to love you.”
Another thing I love is that, when it’s a long novel we can get both slowburn AND established relationship! Overall I highly recommend it, especially if love romantic suspense.
Favourite quote from Luo Wenzhou:
These brazen heterosexuals. Truly, they were never satisfied.
To Read: English translation | Chinese on JJWXC
Other Adaptations
Audiodrama
There are 5 seasons in total, each one adapts one arc/case from the novel.
Available here
The manhua and donghua were announced but there is no further news.
Live action drama – Justice in the Dark
Mo du adaptations seem to be cursed as we only got 8 episodes of the drama but then it didn’t air the rest of the episodes 😭
Rainbows and Sunshine 