"Bullet Scars" is probably the best work written by Fen Wu Yao Ji. After that, I read other books he wrote such as "The Fifth Troop", but I gave up halfway through all of them. The content is relatively similar, and the author tends to be a愤青 (angry youth), but it's still tolerable. The only thing I can't stand is that the author is just too excited. On average, every five sentences, there comes an exclamation point at the end. It's like people in the book are singing instead of talking, with long paragraphs, just like reciting, giving a feeling of overwriting. Then, the protagonist in the book is overly mythologized. Compared to "The Wolf Pack", it's a bit lacking in quality. In comparison, I prefer reading works by Liu Meng and Ci Xue. The author has started a new book on起点 (Qidian). Let's hope for some surprises.
This book is suitable for reading when you're feeling low. If possible, I'd rather call it Chinese passionate literature, a concept similar to Japanese passionate shonen manga. Once, the line "When the blade cuts into the bone, one cannot avoid fighting; when competing for supremacy in a desperate situation, failure means death" got me very excited.
But after finishing it, there wasn't much significant feeling left. I mean, if you've read all of Fen Wu Yao Ji's works, you will definitely have a strong sense of aesthetic fatigue, not just in style, but also in content and writing. You can check out "The Fifth Troop". When I read it with a bit of expectation, I couldn't continue halfway through. It's simply too damn similar to "Bullet Scars"... "Beautiful blood flowers bloom after bowing their heads" "Lord Death swings his sickle"...
I speculate that if you're truly mature, you'll sneer at this book. If you still have a bit of childlike fun and small ideals, you'll often take out the classic chapters of "Bullet Scars" to stimulate your nerves. If you're an angry youth, this is your bible.
Fen Wu Yao Ji's unrestrained writing style, I hope this isn't a sign of running out of ideas. But rather a kind of adjustment. Wishing for even better works in the future~