I Couldn't Set Sail Today (今天也没能扬帆起航) | Distant Spring Breeze (春风遥)
Links: Novelupdates | 98novels
Tags: Infinite flow, Action, Comedy, Fantasy, Horror, Shounen ai, Supernatural
Chapters: 202
Read on: 01/11/2025 to 01/31/2026
This review's destined to be a short one as I ran out of hyperfixation juice due to a certain base building game coming out as I was towards the end of the novel- despite that, I did really enjoy this novel and I love this author's writing style!
Zhou Qi'an has three problems: His mother is trying to marry him off to anything that moves, his boss keeps giving him overtime, and his night school teacher has been oddly possessive of him lately. Every day has been wearing down his nerves, and along with the unrest outside about the age of water approaching, he wants to set sail- run away from his problems.
When he gets pulled into the game on the day of his wedding, he's secretly delighted- no more marriage proposals, no more overtime, no more night school!
Though his elation is short lived- his mother follows him into the first instance, and is somehow scarier than the ghosts who live there...? With his boss following him into his second instance (catching his employees working for others off the clock) Zhou Qi'an has to face the facts...
He couldn't set sail today.
This author's writing style is definitely unique, and I find it really fun. The instances are interesting (and bloody), and Zhou Qi'an's way of dealing with them is equally "interesting". He's constantly leaving almost everyone around him speechless as he decides and executes his next move. I really enjoy that Zhou Qi'an ends up dealing with the NPCs in a much kinder way than even the game expects players to, and I don't think it would be easy for others to imitate him. He's got the unique advantages enabling him to solve instances the way he does. Even if he does blow every single one of them up.
Shen Zhiyi is nice- I don't think he's as exaggerated as the ML of the last novel I read by this author, but the peeks into his perspective were interesting and I liked seeing him follow Zhou Qi'an around. The mystery as to why he and Qi'an are tied to each other the way they are was fun to think about as the instances progressed.
Not too many reoccuring side characters this time- though Qi'an has a reason for it. I did like that several characrers do show up for the final instance simply because they're useful to Zhou Qi'an and not really a threat. The only character always around Zhou Qi'an is Shen Zhiyi, though the College Student is a close second. Ying Yu the weirdo scientist was my favourite of the human side characters, and Miss Qi my fav of the instance NPCs. I do find it weird that Zhou Qi'an never asks Shen Zhiyi about Xun Er.... I guess it wasn't as important.
I looove the unique setting for the game this time. The age of water is coming, and humans need to evolve! Once you're completely evolved into a human-sea creature, you can enter the "New World". But only those strong enough to survive instances are allowed to enter the game and evolve, so it becomes an issue of leaving your loved ones behind and evolving by yourself if you don't do anything about it. Ying Yu and Zhou Qi'an are searching for ways to 'strengthen' and introduce a wider population to being able to evolve as well- to enter the game. And the game lets this happen because more customers means greater returns for its evolutionary system. Its neat.
How was the translation? Readable. Its very clearly edited (sometimes to excess) for the first hundred chapters or so, but after that it becomes poorly edited and maintained MTL. My only gripe for the edited stuff is that they use italics and bold too often- you don't need to add that to your editing if the author didn't use it, please. Afterwards its inconsistent terminology (sometimes in the same chapter), clear references to stuff that's already been defined is not cleaned up, stuff that was translated to english is suddenly left in pinyin, some muddy sentences due to MTL being unclear, leaving Completely untranslated hanzi in for no apparent reason, etc. Most things were still clear enough to be read, but at one point I wasn't sure whether Zhou Qi'an was using his holy trident or the cane he got later. More details under the cut (until I ran out of steam to document them).
Would I recommend this novel? Sure! I'd say go read Matryoshka Off-Limits first though, I prefer it more.
Would I reread this novel? Maybe?
Trigger Warnings: Body horror, Gore, Child death, Torture, Medical malpractice, Cannibalism, Animal death, Sexual assault*, Infant death, Human experimentation, Parasites, Animal death, Rape attempt*, Self harm, Autocannibalism
*Both were either a very brief mention or was part of an Instance introduction.
Arc names + detailed triggers under the cut: