This is the translation of 盘龙 Coiling Dragon, the second internet novel written by popular Chinese fantasy webnovelist I Eat Tomatoes, 我吃西红柿, with the first being 星辰变 Stellar Transformations. Although IET is not a particular good writer, he is an exceptional storyteller with an incredible imagination, which is why in China, his stories have been made into games, and the man himself has become a millionaire. This is one of his finer works; power creep is kept under control, the story is well-paced and interest, and the size and scope of the world is appropriately vast without seeming too empty. Overall, one of the best works by IET. I welcome everyone to come take a look!

This translating is currently hosted at wuxiaworld.com. I invite everyone to come check it out!

... Last updated on January 19th, 2015, 2:13pm

Despite been hosted on a wuxia site, Coiling Dragon is actually a fantasy series! Of course only in the Chinese sense, not the western one with orcs and goblins.

In the beginning, the story has a slow start, it has many unfamilar concepts and characters. Its very easy to get overwhelmed by all the different things in story. In some instances it can get quite hard to read; for example in one part of the book, I just couldn't believe how much of a jerk Linlei (the mc) was! I was shocked. Guess I was too used to reading about conventional goodie two shoe types in Japanese novels. Later this behaviour was somewhat vindicated when these same people actually turned around and backstabbed Linlei (they met again). The world which the author has created was not a nice place. Its a dog eat dog world.

Note this series is veerry long, the length is over 5000 pages and counting. So over the course of the novels, you'll get quite attached to the people in the story. They may start out as unknown strangers with funny names, but as you see these characters develop, hear about their inspirations and dreams, and how they go about their trials and tribulations, you can't help but feel a bond with them. And when they pass away, it can be quite emotional. *sif*

Another thing I should mention about the story, is that the MC often gets powerups out of nowhere. The guy is like a character in an RPG with maxed out luck stat heh.

Although, somehow the author managed this in way that it does not disrupt the power levels or logic of the story. In many Japanese stories, when the MC achieves some huge power breakthroughs against their enemies in one arc, the author usually resort to some kind of contrived plot device to bring the power levels back down again in the next arc. Like using "xxx" puts a huge strain on the body... so it can't be used too often, etc. Or even pure unexplained plotholes that leaves the readers wondering - if the mc could do technique "xxx" before, why didn't he use it against enemy "xxx"? Yeah that kind of story telling can bug you after you see it a few times.

Luckily IET (the author) wrote Coiling Dragon in a such way, that it does not resort to such cheap tricks. The power levels are smooth. Even when Linlei attains some great power, something will inevitably come along and shatter that preconceived notion. He's forced to go all out. Its like a goldfish living in a pond, suddenly discovering there's an ocean out there. Or climbing a mountain but finding out it was nothing more than the foothills of an even greater mountain. The author creates events that turn the world upside down. There's newer and bigger worlds to explore, deadlier and more powerful enemies. Newer thrills that come one after an another. Each new place is populated with denizens and people that are strange and unique. They got their own way of doing things. New concepts to discover, new battles to face, etc. Once it picks up steam, the story turns into this one great epic adventure - like a never ending roller coaster. Heh, it just becomes really fun to read.

I never knew they wrote such good fantasy novels in China, this is my first. But after this I'll be sure to keep an eye out for similar works if they get translated.

PS. The translator took the liberty of westernising most of the characters and place names. However if you find the localized names off-putting, I highly suggest you copy the story in a word doc and do an all word replace with the original Chinese name like I did (the translator have kindly included them in brackets).

... Last updated on August 8th, 2015, 8:41pm

"Addictive" is what i would describe this in one word. Protagonist is very hard working and likable person

The world building is very exciting as well...i already gobbled up 8 Books in 2 days and still can't stop...

Shout Out to Ren for Translating this Epic Novel in a Godly speed making this journey even more fruitful ...

10/10

... Last updated on June 4th, 2015, 9:52am

I really can't agree with some of you... (btw english isnt my native language)

First of: The Thing I actually noticed first about the Story is that I have never seen an author that is this good with cliffhangers (and no I have read more than 1000 books already...). But that is probably a part of publishing online where there are chapter released continuesly. So it is nessecery to put in cliffhangers so the audiance stays.

As for the Protagonist being to lucky. The only thing he was really lucky with is the coiling dragon ring. When compared to other novels he is rather unlucky if you ask me. And he is someone who really works to get stronger and not some stupid power ups while fighting like in mangas and some novels.

About him being sociopathic: yes he isn't you justice freak like some people like it, because they still think that the world is black and white. Never heard of the phrase: loving friend, ruthless enemy. If he wouldn't be like he is he would already be dead.

If fantasy world with magic, battles, martial arts, training arcs, and a bit of romance is your thing.. You will not regret giving this a shot.

The constant cliff hangers will have you addicted by the first volume, while the world gets bigger as you explore it through the eyes of Linley.

Highly recommended if you enjoyed LNs such as Mushoku Tensei, Ark, LMS

Also recommended If you enjoy wuxia type stories.. As the author's style resonants in the light of famous chinese wuxia stories

This is a really amazingly well written, fulfilling story which people who are REAL wuxia fans will enjoy. Yes, I initially thought that despite widely popular storytelling skills, it had a marvelously intriguing plot. Boy was I Right. All the plot is really about is the MC struggling his way to the top and having pretty women fall for him because he's such a "Badass mofo". Obviously, there's more to love here than this enticing premise. This story is correctly unapologetic about treating "weaker" people brutally. Along with this is a realistic sense of justice. This only goes to show that the (heroic wuxia fans) people who like this story would have no qualms about treating people who are scum very poorly in this fictional world, maybe because they are not pampered by an upper-middle class upbringing in real life.

All in all, this is a really spectacular piece of work and I can't believe a masterpiece like this is unappreciated. We really need to have a better sense of literature, people!!

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This is a great novel. I always dislike comments for pointing out the brutality and violence as a downside, which is unrealistic. Human nature is simple and brutal and some people enjoy reading fantasy about that, if you are one of those people then read this.

Imagine a world where through training you can become stronger and stronger, then imagine this world has no police force since there was no way to police those stronger, which leads to people with power killing whoever they want (so not like real life at all >.>). Then imagine swords, monsters and dragons. There you go, have fun.


to: ElanorR
Grow up, insulting a large group of people because you didn't like something is not mature. Since this is the interwebz which provides everyone with Beatdown Shield v2.011 beta, all I can say is stop being a brat. You are obviously projecting and that is ok, we accept and forgive you. I only wonder why you had to read 18 volumes of the story before you called everyone a loser? surely you enjoyed it until that point right..... so what does.....that make you?

... Last updated on August 31st, 2015, 9:48am

Don't know about you, but I don't mind OP-esnessnessness if its done atleast in a semi-believable manner. That is, when happenings dont throw you out of the loop to wonder - where the hell did that come from.. The setting for Coiling Dragon is honestly well done.
Our MC comes from an ancient family of dragonblood warriors that is barely a shadow of what it used to be. Just that there explains his drive to get stronger and means of doing so.
The ring. Its name is the title of this novel. Is it supposed to have little impact upon the story? Hell no. Its supposed to have universe altering capabilities in some way! If it didn't, then this novel wouldn't be worth writing - not to mention reading.. Might aswell read about someone average doing average things. Everything "lucky" that happens later is either because of the ring or bloodline.

Pace of the story is incredible. It rarely delves very deep into anything, but because of that its snappy. Things actually happen in each chapter. Its pretty hard to stop reading. Wanted to wait and read when full volume is out.. Didnt work out haha.

This is a light novel. LIGHT. NOVEL. Please dont expect something else from it so you can enjoy it the way its meant to be enjoyed.

alphaGULP - have you ever gotten dumped in such a way? By your first love no less. He went bananas, but then processed it inside and outside of him int those 10 days. This is the only outcome possible. To be strictly civil with the person, and not involve emotions anymore. I Eat Tomatoes is throwing those situations into our face a bit too often, but the outcome as such is believable.

I cant wait to see where this ends up at. As soon as we found out about Haiden, this clearly became huge. Linley is very-very low strength wise, no matter what we read about. Those thousands of years it takes to progress into top levels arent easily cheated.

I am thoroughly entertained by this read. Odds are you are too.

If you have tiny bit of patience to read through initial phases of novel then you are in for a novel which has a cliff-hanger every chapter....also it's very enjoying cause it has heck of a lot chapters.......

I have nothing but the highest admiration for this novel. It does so much right, has interesting characters, a well-realized and fantastic world, and an intriguing plot to boot. All without wearing out its' welcome like so many other series do. Its like whenever think you think everything's gonna be ok, something comes along and unexpected things happen.

I really love it when it feels like the author sat down before the series and thought out how the plot was going to go, and you can tell that this story was carefully considered before being written. This seems like a small thing to praise but I honestly feel like Coiling dragon has no useless chapters or subplots, everything feels necessary to the story and moves the plot along.

Well, I told you my opinion of the novel, so I won't say more. It was just to make you understand that this novel is really magic, and I'd recommend it to everyone, even the ones who never tried any Chinese novels. Thanks Ren for translating this great series.

... Last updated on June 29th, 2016, 6:14am

The first time I had the chance to stumble upon Ren's work on wuxiaworld I was a little drawn back. I couldn't expect a country known for its history to give something so fresh. After tons of harem, crappy comedy, most idiotic plots in the entire history and many others like these that you can find in most lightnovels, this xianxia opened my eyes to an entire different form of entertainment. It has a lot of bad things, from the rushed ending to the tons of plot holes. Even so, this one will be my very best xianxia that I ever read just because it made me start reading even more than I actually did.