Second opinion

As I was completing the crime story I was contacted by Mandarin checker who has been taking he time to go through Hidden Secret and A Chance Encounter. She gave me her honest opinion, they are good, however, they both feel rushed and the only thing which links the stories together is the ending of A Chance Encounter. The other thing she pointed out was the name of Bǎihé's third son, the first part of his name really throw her, because it did not mean anything in Chinese and she had no idea what I was trying to call him. So we came up with another name for him Chūnfēng (Spring breeze) She went on to tell me that was her other issue with both stories, was making Chūnfēng Third-in-command, was not a punishment, it was a reward. She said, "I would never give a man like him, who is a murder, a job that important." I agreed with her and he has now been written out of A Chance Encounter. I also told her I was planning on completely removing him from both stories, simply because of the length of time he has been around. Also because he is such a nasty piece of work, I can see his parents cutting him out of their lives a long time ago. Another thing is I was considering, because he resents his parents so much, he could have disappeared once he had got his wings.

Then it dawned on us giving his age he would have had his children long before Límíng wù was born. That is when it hit us Dorjee was born in the Neolithic and fought in the Dark Chapter. This means his son could not have been born in 500 BC, going by the Dragon reproductive cycle, they are capable of having children when they become immortal in their twenties. But they can prevent it from happening with the use of certain herbs, however, if he misses a dose or engages in sex, it can result in him having a child. So we tuck some time working out with the use of other old stories when Límíng wù was born and came to the conclusion his birth was in 1000BC and he grew up in the time of Three Kingdoms in Korea. It was also the Iron Age. This means war was happing a lot in his region so at the age of five he is sent to China with his brother to one be taught by Longwei and also to kept them safe.

Right, so this means Hidden Secret needs to be set in 989 BC not 490 BC and A Chance Encounter needs to be set in 984 BC not 485 BC. With a bit of digging we also found who was in power in 984 BC King Zhao of Zhou. My Mandarin checker told me to ignore the dates on wikipedia when you click his name as they are completely wrong, he in fact ruled China from 995-977 BC going by the date his father died 996 BC. This one problem with early history of China the dates and events are only a rough account of what happened back then, we should take it with a pinch of salt with a lot of history being rewritten by the next person in power.

I am so pleased she helped me go through the stories and I am currently rewriting A Chance Encounter so it fits better with Hidden Secret, that story has also got an extra chapter and just needs the dates sorting and it will be perfect.