For the RG:

I loved your descriptions of Vivien meeting the Immortal women. The whole set up felt both incredibly opulent, but also sinister, and had this unnerving sense of unease running through it.

The scene between Katherine and Li Hua was really cute as well. It seemed to say a lot about their friendship, and I felt quite sad for Li Hua at the end.

However, I think you do need to find a beta-reader - while there are no terrible errors, it's slip-ups like describing Vivien's aunt as 'approaching' rather than 'approachable' and the crowd as "chattering noiselessly" (were they talking amongst themselves psychically? :P) that stop this story from really grabbing me by the throat.

Still - I really want to know what happens next, for both Vivien and Li Hua...

Hey - I thought I'd chuck this in as a freebie with the review for Chapter 2 for the Review Game.

I liked this. The characters seem very likeable, and you give enough away about them to let the reader engage, without attacking them with a barrage of descriptions and traits.

As a Brit, I personally loved the line:

"She gave him the churlish look of Gordon Brown (the politician) and stepped out from under her hiding place, sunlight piercing into her brown eyes mercilessly."

but I'm not quite sure how much sense it made - the thought of a schoolgirl emerging from under the stairs with a face like the prime minister is actually quite terrifying! XD

There are a few things you need to go over and correct - but there all little things. The only one that particularly grated me was

"Li Hua rolled her eyes, knowing Louis would just accept Katherine's proposal. He was so gullible when it came to his pride. She thought."

I get what you're trying to say, but it reads a bit muddled. "Accept Katherine's proposal" seems a very long-winded way of saying he's going to do what she asks him to. I also have no idea why "She thought" is there.

Right - onto chapter 2... :)

Hey, sorry it took longer than I said.

Very good. Love the censery at the beginning. Spelling and grammar are perfect. I like your dialogue very much. Its not corny, and it flows with ease.

Keep it up:)

I liked the interaction between Vivian and her Autie, I was interested in seeing the role that women play and it was fun for me to see them kind of bickering over the dress and everything, it really developed relationships.

With Li Hua, you did a good job with the flow of dialogue, ect, which I liked because it was easy to follow the conversation, I especially liked the quick comment concerning gossip, haha.

Editing aspects: still saw a few sentences ending with prepositions, with "in" and everything, no biggie, just raising your awareness, and my only criticism about the dialogue is grammar-wise. Make sure that if you have a dialogue tag like:

"...I'm not supposed to tell." He said.

He said.

I like that you switch POVs because it obviously gives the reader great perspectives and I like getting into character's heads--but I feel a little overwhelmed with characters in this chapter, I found myself losing track of who was who, it's only the second chapter and there seem to be a lot of characters to keep track of, all with different significance.

Again, however, I loved your subtle descriptions and use of verbs, the way you describe movement as "gliding" really gives your writing a subtle poetic form. Eh, I'd hate to be Vivian...but your description of the scene of her submission stuck out to me the most in this chapter!

Hmm, well the editing aspect didn't detract from the story but I do have a few pointers for you if you decide to edit your own work. Look out for prepositions, you tend to end sentences with them, which is obviously very minor (I do it some times too) but is still improper grammatically. So don't end sentences with "down" ect, there' s list online. Also I saw a few spelling errors...but I really don't care about grammar/spelling because it's one of my weaker points too. If you're looking for an editor, you should consult some Betas on fictionpress who would read your chapters and edit before you put them up, I believe there's Beta topic on the RG, if not, there's Beta reading profiles somewhere on this site...

Besides not editing the chapter, I found it very polished and clean in respect to plot and characterization. You have a good grip on your characters and I really felt like I was getting into the scenes, even if I can't relate to a private school setting in China! It was a great window for me and your balance of dialogue and narrative worked well.

I feel like you got off on a kind of slow start but then it positively picked up by the end when the ancient story at the beginning was applied in a way I appreciated.

I also liked your descriptions of the mountain, the forests, and the temple. You painted a very wonderful picture of the setting and had a chilling ending that was very purposeful to the idea of the prologue.

This is definitley a polished and strong start!

Good chapter! The necklace intigues me...not just cause it's made out of my name sake. And I like Chris, somtimes when a charachter makes an apperence I just say "I like them" and with Chris this is definitly the case.
Keep on writing! ;D

For the review game:

This is a pretty good start to the story. The set-up seems interesting and well thought out and there's some really good imagery in there. I particularly loved the description of "their determination seeping out of their bones."

The introduction of the executioner is probably the chapter's weakest point. "At the side standing next to the two Immortal Women beneath the temple, an executioner stared sternly in front of him self" just doesn't read well.

I would go for using either "At the side of the two Immortal Women" or "Standing next to the two Immortal Women" as both those are clearer descriptions. Also, instead of "stared sternly in front of himself" I'd just cut to "stared sternly out" as the original description feels very clumsy.

This seems like a really promising prologue, and I'm more than just a little curious about what's going to happen next.

I like it!

The beginning had me scared though. What with Leora's heart thumping and her wishing not to be found. And the fact that the final words of the previous chapter (prologue, whatever) had to do with a girl being murdered.

I really like the characters

This is a very orginal idea; you must have a lot of creativity.

I felt so badly for this Libby girl--the one who had failed. You descibed her dissapointment very well.

Hmm, it's an interesting story you've set up here. I like how you've intertwined the element of fantasy yet the sometimes horrifying truth of real life. It gives the piece a more familiar feel and I think the reader can better connect with that. As for the actual writing, you had a few spelling and grammar errors here and there and they only really bothered me because they were noticeable ones that messed up the flow. I had to re-read sentences a lot and that bothered me. Just fix that up and it'll be fine.

Ok I FINALLY got around to checking this out... SO sorry...
I can see that you changed things, I like that you added the Kilometers going down, it adds to the suspense. You did a great job with editing too- No typos! Great job!
Keep on writing! :D

From the Review Game~

Idea: Very unique to say the least. I FAIL at writing fantasy stories and reading something like makes me FAIL harder XD. The way you pull readers in coul be worked on, however. It was interesting the way you had The Dragon. The Phoenix. The Qilin. The Turtoise. spaced out but the story seemed to suddenly rush in.

Writing: I love the choice of words you have. Here and there I fwelt some words were unessasary but overall I found the detail exceptionally done :)

Characters: Your characters are a bit bland when compared to your writing style. Emphasize more on their dialogue and traits so that they will be more bold against all the wonderful details.

Pace: It's a little off here and there. It starts out slow at the beginning but it gets really fast at the end. Try and keep a mdiuem pace that way readers don't feel like their dragging their eyes to read or feeling that they are being rushed too quickly.

Overall: This story has great potential :D

Background of myself as a reviewer - where my pov would come from:
1) I'm a reader who spend over 50% of time reading online materials.
2) I read mostly news, articles on line
3) Reading novels are only about 10% of my readings
4) Occupation - writing business plan and project plans, research and analysis on e-Marketing analytic and tools.

Review and comments:
1) Overall impression - I felt like I am reading a movie script, rather than a story.
2) Strengths of the writer - Very good description of motion like pictures.
3) Things to be improved:
3.1. Prologue is an engagement with the reader: Impress the reader by telling them what kind of story that you are going to write about. Or impress the reader with a very interesting scene in a prologue. But neither of these 2 objectives were met. All I simply got is a motion picture scene.

3.2. Building the connection with the reader. Try to think who your target readers are. Use language and people and incidences that these readers can connect themselves with. On one hand, they know that you are writing a fiction. On the other hand, they can connect to the bottoms of the heart. For instance, in Harry's Porter's book, even we don't have a school for witches. These children they go to school and they interact with each other as school children. Or even other Chinese science fiction.

3.3. Story telling or fiction - Let the characters stand out which is rather vague.

3.4. Planning! Planning! Planning! - If you want to write this just to practice your writing skill, it would be ok. But if you want to practice this by having a dream or goal to publish, then you have to do lots of planning before starting to write. For instance, you are asking people to read online? Then online readers have very different expectations and reading habits for fiction and other materials. So you should also do your research.

3.5. Marketing 101 - Garbage in! Garbage out! What you are trying to get from your review. Pick your reviewers very carefully. And whatever they are going to say, analyze their backgrounds and where they are coming from. What beneath the surface of their reviews.