Yong Sheng

Cultivation donghua is dominated by isekai tropes with an arrogant protagonist carrying out a revenge fantasy. So it's a breath of fresh air when we get one with humble origins, who is cautious and has the modicum of self-awareness to stay low profile when the situation demands. Fang Han is a generational slave for the Fang family, tasked to feed and train horses, but sneaks out to watch and imitate the martial artists training in his spare time. He is caught and beat, but he has no time for revenge, since his father impressed upon him at an early age that his only goal should ... be to buy himself out of slavery. One day while training out in the woods, he runs into a cultivator from a demonic sect who was injured, and seeing than Fang Han is an honest person, with his dying breath the cultivator passes some basic cultivation ability to Fang Han, teaches him how to train, and gives him two legendary artifacts that would help him become strong. He then passes Fang Han his will.

Note that moral ambiguity is a common theme in Chinese historic martial arts fantasies, and that demon sects are really just people with unorthodox beliefs labeled by the so-called righteous sects. They are not necessarily demonic, nor evil, just as you could probably imagine, not everyone in a righteous sect is good.

While the set up is pretty standard, the strength is in the execution. Being a slave and relying on his wits rather than unlimited knowledge from a previous life makes Fang Han relatable. He does not have ego problems where he has to dominate all his enemies, and while he is a bit naive at first, Fang Han bites his tongue and stands down at times because he knows relying on purely guts and willpower would get him killed -- something that sets him apart from his shounen contemporaries. These are some of the qualities that made A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality (Fanren Xiu Xian Chuan) among the top cultivation donghua, its protagonist was also of modest origins, having been sold as a child to a clan to help feed his parents and sister. Like this other show, Yong Sheng also features a balanced cast of nuanced characters, including the Fang family's eldest prodigious daughter who treats Fang Han like a slave, but at the same time recognizes his talent and gives him opportunities. And also the, of compatriots that Fang Han meets along the way, there are honest ones like potential love interest Hongyi, and also others who would no quicker stab him in the back.

It's no secret that cultivation donghua are replete with repetitive tropes, but a good execution helps masks some of the patterns. Some doghua move along the arcs in predictable succession: hunting beasts, an alchemist auction, a contest to see who can hunt more, a tournament arc, rinse and repeat... Shows like Yong Sheng and Mortal's Journey has many of these same tropes, but spends more time in between building the characters and relationships, developing the personalities and elaborating on the social dynamics.

It helps that they have superior budget, excellently choreographed fight scenes that don't just look like projectile spamming, and realistic character models and facial expressions. And it's capped off by a moving ballad by Zhu Sang (stage name Tacke) with an old school Chinese vibe that really lends to the show's potential to be a classic.

Yong Sheng is a Chinese Donghua about a commoner slave named Fang Han who was employed by the Fang family, a prosperous and prestigious/noble family due to having a female true disciple Fang Qingxue studying directly under the Sect leader. Unbeknownst to the Fang family, a rivalling sect sent an assassin to eliminate Fang Qingxue - failing to do so and nearing the end of his life the assassin met Fang Han who became the carrier of the assassin's powerful cultivation artifact and task to eliminate true disciple Fang Qingxue on behalf of the rivalling sect. Fang Han now had the powers to cultivate and ... with a special master that lies in hibernation until Fang Han gains enough cultivation to activate it. How will Fang Han bear as his journey from a common slave to a master?

Story & Character: 8/10
The beginning of the story is very slow paced and vague, only the characters and cultivation stages made sense at the earlier stage of Yong Sheng. However, as the characters were introduced the story began to pick up pace with Fang Han learning how to fight his enemies rather quickly and eventually gaining attention from various parties in the series. Yong Sheng isn't very narrative driven and instead chooses to stick to simple and instant-gratification where MC destroys his enemies thanks to his overpowered cultivation artifact. The enemy characters, who we expect are the devil/demon sect (not a spoiler: the sect that are trying to assassinate Fang Qinxue) aren't as it seems and instead Fang Han is more at risk from being backstabbed the more powerful he becomes thanks to the higher disciples becoming interested in him even closer to the end of the first season. I think this is a better structured story than many previous donghua I have seen mainly because the characters don't feel as disposable and the events occur actually tie into the development of Fang Han and Hongyi. There isn't much romance in this season but several hints to a Hongyi x Fang Hang are certainly there as well as maybe some other female characters.

Art & Sound: 7/10
This is most certainly a copy paste style donghua where the assets are used form another series but it isn't necessarily a bad thing. I think this is where the art and animation shine because it doesn't feel too home-made or indie and movement have some substance to it especially in the fight scenes. What they could improve on is definitely sound because the grunting when someone is eliminated is meme-worthy and even some scenes visually lacking in background detail - including the ending fight with the devil sect. Apart from that everything in terms of visuals and audio were as expected from the typical donghua.

Enjoyment & Overall: 7/10
For me, Yong Sheng was an enjoyable series where the underdog gains power quickly and becomes the boss. A lot of the time the MC does that and their entire family of nobles betrays them, in this series it feels like the Fang family are in support of the MC Fang Han so does Hongyi who is a VIP from another noble family as portrayed within the initial meeting episodes with Fang Han. It was an enjoyable watch and I look forward to a sequel.

While this donghua is an adaptation of a novel, I have never read the actual source (I've read the manhua which is also an adaptation of the novel), so I will not speak to how well of an adaptation this work is.

General Plot: Fang Han, a generational serf of the Fang Clan, wants to fulfill his father's dream of becoming a free person. In order to do this, he secretly watches the clan disciples practice during his free time and trains at night, hoping to establish a strong enough cultivation to break free of his serfdom. During one of his secret nighttime practices, he encounters ... a dying man (attacked by Fang Qingxue, the eldest young mistress of the Fang Clan for his treasures) who decides to entrust a cultivation pill and demon artifact to him and requests him to rise up and eventually kill Fang Qing Xue. This pill allows him to quickly strengthen his cultivation, attracting Fang QingXue's attention, allowng him to join the sect and beginning his true cultivation journey.

One of the main differences this donghua has from most other cultivation donghua is that does not have an OP MC, reincarnator MC, or time-regressor MC; he is an ordinary in-universe person. He is naive and his knowledge on the world matches his background. His character and development are consistant with someone of his status, which is quite unique (for now, also no OP teacher). While this could be considered a rather normal cultivation story with similar goals, his progression, attitude and character make it unique. The only drawback of this is that the season is abit short. The character models, and animations are fluid so that is a huge plus; the action/fighting scenes could use a bit of work though.

PS (and possible spoiler): do you really think Hongyi is dead? Yeah right, everything shown after her "death" implies she didn't die.