Sha Po Lang Review: The Danmei Epic Worth Its Length

Sha Po Lang opens in a frontier town built next to a hill of discarded armour, and by the end of chapter two Priest has shown you a family secret, a steam-powered empire and an airship the size of a mountain. For this Sha Po Lang review we read the first two chapters in the Chinese original on JJWXC. It's a remarkably confident opening. The catch is what comes later: some readers who finished it call the middle heavy going.

Sha Po Lang Review: What the First Two Chapters Do

Chapter one, 边陲 ("The Frontier"), starts with two children spying on a boy practising swordwork on General's Slope. The slope isn't a hill at all: it's where the empire's Black Iron Battalion dumped its spent armour on the way home from a northern campaign fourteen years earlier. Priest calls the pair a running bowl and a pair of chopsticks, one tall and thin, one short and round, and the book is funny like that throughout the opening.

The boy is Chang Geng, not quite fourteen, who already lifts a sword of over sixty jin with one hand. His stepfather is away collecting tribute from the northern tribes. The household next door holds the two people who matter: Shen Yi, a failed scholar who teaches by day and repairs steam engines, steel armour and puppets by night, and his brother Shen Shiliu, who can barely see two feet in front of him and has to be shouted at. "总而言之，沈十六是个又聋又瞎的病秧子," as the chapter puts it: in short, Shen Shiliu is a deaf, blind invalid. Two years earlier the brothers saved Chang Geng from wolves, and Shiliu cheerfully adopted him as his godson.

Cover: Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang Vol. 1, art by Eornheit. Credit: Seven Seas Entertainment

Chapter two, 义父 ("Godfather"), is where the novel shows its hand. Shiliu gives Chang Geng an iron wrist guard that hides blades thin enough to split a hair, and claims a market seller let it go cheap as a reject. As soon as the boy leaves, Shen Yi tells him it's the finest black iron, its blades the last work of a dead master, and asks whether he really means to raise the boy as his son. That one exchange tells you nobody in this house is who they say they are, and Priest doesn't explain any of it.

Then the steampunk arrives all at once. Before dawn the ground shakes: the giant kites are coming home, airships more than five thousand chi long, their wings made of thousands of jets burning violet gold, hauling the year's tribute back to the capital. It's a terrific image, and it's the first time the book admits how big its world is.

One thing to know going in: the romance grows out of the godfather bond. Chapter two notes Shiliu is only seven or eight years older than Chang Geng, and has Chang Geng wake from a dream about the night Shiliu carried him out of the snow. JJWXC's own blurb gives away who Shiliu really is: Gu Yun. If the godfather dynamic is a dealbreaker, you'll know by the end of chapter two.

Where It Goes, and Why Readers Split

Seven Seas' own blurb takes it from there: raiders hit the town, Chang Geng learns his mother, his teacher and his godfather are not what they seem, and he follows Shiliu to the capital. What happens after is the part readers argue about.

On r/DanmeiNovels, one reader who finished it gave it three stars for that reason: "I thought the plot of SPL was really heavy (so much historical politics....) and confusing." Another put the shift more precisely: "the 1st volume is slightly more characters-driven, while the others, except at the end, are more plot/politics driven." The fans answer that the politics is the romance. "I found the plot made the romance much more believable," wrote u/angrymagiclibrarian, one of its fans.

We can't settle that from two chapters, and we won't pretend to. What this Sha Po Lang review can say is that the opening isn't the slow part.

The English Edition

Seven Seas brought it out as Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang across five paperbacks, each $19.99, with covers and interior illustrations by Eornheit. The publisher says the English edition uses the uncensored text, and calls the series a USA Today bestseller. The run is finished: the last volume came out in January 2025, so you can buy the whole thing today.

Screenshot: Seven Seas Entertainment, Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang series page, October 15, 2026

On JJWXC, more than a million readers have bookmarked the original. The extras were moved out of the main text and now sit after the finale as nine bonus chapters.

Sha Po Lang Review: Our Take

Read the first two chapters before you decide anything; they're free on JJWXC and they're the best argument for the book. If you like a story that hides its secrets in plain sight and builds a whole political world around its couple, buy the first English volume. If you want the romance in the foreground from start to finish, the readers who stalled in the middle are telling you something.

Related Reading

• Priest Danmei Author Profile: What to Read After Sha Po Lang
• Danmei Novels in English: Which Licensed Series to Start
• Best Danmei Novels for Binge Reading: Finished in English
• Seven Seas Danmei Baihe License Tracker: 2026 Guide
• Best Modern Danmei Novels in English

References

[1] JJWXC: 杀破狼 by priest [2] JJWXC: chapter 1, 边陲 [3] JJWXC: chapter 2, 义父 [4] Seven Seas Entertainment: Stars of Chaos: Sha Po Lang series page [5] r/DanmeiNovels: Sha Po Lang by Priest, should I continue reading it to the end? [6] r/DanmeiNovels: Is Sha Po Lang worth picking up again?