"Storytellers do that sort of thing."

I'm not sure how I missed it before, but maybe the reason that I find the narrator in River of Stars so interesting is because it's unreliable.

On page 208, a single line suggests that the narrator is definitely shiftier than you might expect, especially if you're still reeling from the propriety and socially constrained court intrigue of the book's first part. This line comes at the end of a list of people who also heard a sound that the recently killed (and just a short while earlier introduced) O-Yan heard before his death:

"It was also possible that someone, later, spinning a tale out of the old sorrow of a young man's dying, might have added that sound to twist the hearts of listeners a little more. Storytellers do that sort of thing."

Taking this new perspective on the book's narrator has made me pay closer attention to the narrative. However, my ongoing issue with the book isn't its narration or narrator, but the constant cycling through of characters. We're told that O-Yan is a young man of promise, a typical chosen one - but we aren't ever given a chance or a reason to care about what this destiny may or may not be. To some extent, that seems to be the point that Kay is getting at here, since one of the book's emerging themes is the fickleness of fortune, even among those who are "chosen."

With such a theme emerging, Ren's plan to climb the army's ranks through his connection to Wang Fuyin, now a chief magistrate of the city of Jingxian, is cast against a very dull backdrop indeed. In fact, Ren's effort has been quite conveniently set up to fail in the worst way possible. Though not just because of some unknowable fate.

Fuyin is portrayed as a crafty character who has honed his calculating side as he's risen through the magisterial ranks himself. I expect some form of trouble to come out of Ren's dealings with him.