What's It About?

Tasked with investigating the brutal murder of a dozen people overnight, detective Yuan Feng Liang is surprised when 18 year old Jin Xi Cheng confesses and is sentenced to life in prison.

Seven years later another bizarre murder takes place, and the special ops team sent in to investigate simply vanishes. Brought back in to investigate the case, office Liang is asked to speak with someone who may be involved; Jin Xi Cheng. Making an agreement to take responsibility for him, Liang takes Cheng into his custody and learns this young man is more than he first appeared; in fact, he is a powerful wizard. But Cheng doesn't see his abilities as a blessing; to him, they are a curse of his bloodline. Can this unlikely duo find the truth behind these murders?

The Wizard: When Words Kill has story by Shi Wu, with English translation by Denys Hontarenko. Published by Tokyopop (May 20, 2025). Rated OT.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

Danmei: It's not just from Seven Seas anymore. Well, it hasn't been exclusive to that publisher for quite some time (Peach Flower House, Via Lactea, and Rosmei exist, among others) but The Wizard marks another mainstream manga/light novel publisher making and entry on the scene, and that's exciting for fans of the Chinese queer fiction genre. Unfortunately for those same fans, The Wizard is less romance-focused than many other danmei offerings.

The story does have a queer main couple, their romance is less important than the found-family aspect of the book. Cheng Jinxi is one of the few remaining members of his biological family – because, as the opening of the novel tells us, he killed them. Young police detective Liang Yuanfeng is convinced that Jinxi didn't do it, but the eighteen-year-old is adamant that, despite his alibi, he's the murderer. His removal to a prison quickly proves him right: Jinxi is a wizard (used here as the masculine equivalent of “witch”), able to use his words to kill someone without laying a finger on them. Still, Yuanfeng is certain that the gentle-looking young man wouldn't have killed for no good reason, and because his uncle is in charge of the prison, Jinxi is given special treatment…

…or so we're led to assume. We don't see any of that except in the barest flashbacks, because after the prologue, the book jumps ahead seven years, by which point Jinxi and Yuanfeng are a couple. We aren't privy to their courtship or how they went from cop-and-criminal to boyfriends. While it isn't necessarily important to the supernatural mystery plot of the novel, it's also frankly annoying, if only because it feels like we're missing swathes of character development for them both.

Fortunately, the mystery is engaging, and the aforementioned found-family element of the book is strong. Cheng Jinxi has a good reason for everything he's done, and that all goes back to the Cheng family's magical bloodline. Jinxi is the current bearer of the supernatural gifts, but he's not content to let the Cheng family dictate how he uses them – in fact, everything he does is in the interest of protecting his niece, Nie Yongshu. Her parents (his sister and brother-in-law) were killed, kicking off the entire series of events, and Cheng Jinxi's reason for being is to keep his Yongshu safe from the family's magic powers and those who would use her for their own benefit. He, Yongshu, and Yuangfeng eventually form a family unit, and the scenes with the three of them settling into a warm and caring life are some of the strongest in the book.

The mystery plot revolves around a supernatural case that Yuangfeng and the other policemen can't solve without Jinxi's help. I don't want to say too much about it, so you can figure it out yourself. It's solid and relies on interesting lore and Chinese folk beliefs. It makes me sorry that the plot skipped over those seven years, not just because of the romance, but also because it would have given us a chance to learn more about the magic system. If you like Case File Compendium, this hits a lot of the same murder mystery notes without the troubling non-and-dubcon sex scenes. Even with its flaws, it's a pretty good book.

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Lauren Orsini
Rating:

I love how Chinese danmei novels are so easy to summarize, even without giving anything away. In The Wizard, Nie Yongshu's uncle and Nie Yongshu's uncle nurture a budding romance, but after a series of supernatural murders, Nie Yongshu's uncle asks the pair to use their unique skills to solve the case. Could the real culprit be… Nie Yongshu's uncle? If you've read other danmei novels, like Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, you are well aware that between blood relations and sworn-brother connections, everyone is somebody's uncle. In one of the funniest lines in The Wizard, the narrator claims the main character “felt like his own uncle.” Other than this detail, however, The Wizard is not a novel with a sense of humor. It's a dark, brooding supernatural police drama with a tender, domestic love story at its core.

Ten years ago, a series of bizarre murders stumped the police. When a teenage Cheng Jinxi confessed to the puzzling crime, the department was more than happy to have a scapegoat to wrap up a procedural embarrassment. Rookie detective Liang Yuanfeng isn't so content to let the cops handwave away their incompetence, but even after he finds an alibi for Cheng Jinxi during every one of those murders, Cheng Jinxi continues to insist he committed the crime. That's how Liang Yuanfeng finds out there are people in this world called wizards who have the supernatural ability to kill using only their minds—and Cheng Jinxi is one of them. As Cheng Jinxi and Liang Yuanfeng use their complementary skill sets to solve crimes, they simultaneously move in together to give Cheng Jinxi's niece, Nie Yongshu, a stable home. As they co-parent, they are drawn more deeply to one another as romantic partners. Their cuddly kisses and overt love confessions are refreshingly textual, as opposed to the blink-and-you'll-miss-it subtext I usually encounter in danmei novels. As the winding plot reaches its conclusion, Cheng Jinxi is about to find out once and for all if he'll finally be allowed to live peacefully or if the enemies he's made through his power are too vengeful to allow his loved ones to survive.

This novel's writing style felt a bit mechanical to me, but I can't blame that on its handful of typos. Part of that might be that I'm unused to Chinese writing conventions, like addressing a character with their first and last name at every reference. It took some getting used to, but its compelling supernatural police drama and sweet found family substory made me hope Tokyopop keeps bringing similar danmei books to US readers.