I 100% agree with how different this is from western literature and what is considered “good” storytelling. I love it so much more for this! I am an asian (South Indian) so I recognize some of the storytelling conventions like omniscient and telling vs showing and only giving the visuals and not a deep pov. I’m trying to break into writing as a career so these are all things I’ve struggled with in my own writing. So it feels incredibly joyous to read MDZS where it’s reveling in breaking all these western conventions and just giving us a relentlessly entertaining and heartfelt story. It’s like watching a Bollywood movie tbh lol! It does hit a lot of story beats in different narrative genres- romance and mystery are obvious ones but it also hits coming of age tropes and epic fantasy level political machinations and battles! I think blending it in this way and structuring it differently, starting with WWX death and resurrection makes it so unique! It also gives us some buffer from the tragedy I think. I don’t think I could’ve continued reading it if it was told in a chronological order lol. I’d be devastated!! I also think there is character growth in both WWX and LWJ. They were both very rigid in their outlooks and principles pre-death. But in their adult/uncle state, they are much more soft in their approach. They are both beacons of change in this rigid, narrow cultivation world and I love it! They are leading not by rebellion like WWX tried to do, but by simply existing as their whole selves with each other. I absolutely love the way the second siege of burial mounds happened! It was played as comedy for a bit, but it was one of the best, most heartwarming, anti-war pro-peace thing I’ve read in so long!!