Beware Of Chicken

Really nice and relaxed story line, though there are some typos and sometimes phrases are written in present, making it a bit awkward to read. Don't let that stop you from reading this, it's fun, it's cute, it's relaxing. Character development is nice too, too many times in a Xianxia has the female figure become nothing more than a sleep companion and harem participator, so that was refreshing.

Basically, it's good. Grammer and spelling is mostly pretty good. Characters are all wonderful and complex and whatnot. Style is good, and I like it, it actually makes multiple points of view work well. And of course story, which is nice, but it is a slice of life most of the time. Which frankly, I really want. 

So yeah, read it, or don't, clearly the author did something right with this story, you know?

Our MC, a (unknowingly) stupidly powerful man-child, decides that farming is a more survivable thing to do than continue getting beaten in a sect. Thus, he buys some land and builds a farm from the ground up. You'd think that the story would be boring, since it's about a man and his farm, but this is far from being boring.

great protag and hilarious premise! Cuts out a lot of the tropes and themes Xianxia novels typically have. I especially love the subversion of usual story beats present in this story.

If I were to introduce someone to this genre I would put this on their list to read. 

10/10 would recommend this story!

This is STILL average xianxia fair, it's not really reinventing the wheel but more like bedazzling it. It can get away by being both standard and disruptive xianxia by embracing xianxia tropes, inserting some commonsense then making sure not to mock the genre. It's akin to ribbing a good friend than subversing the genre.

I'm not saying that's a bad thing either, this got recommended to me by someone insisting that this was the newest thing ever . . . it's not. Again, that's not a bad thing, but I don't want people to come and read this story expecting it to deliver something it doesn't aim to.

(as of chapter 41)

A human from modern Earth is transmigrated into the body of Jin Rou, a xianxia cultivator sect disciple just killed in a "spar" by one of the Arrogant Young Masters. He decides that wasting his life in a mad struggle for ruthless domination is not what he wants, so he G-T-F-Os and becomes a farmer. Now, there are different views on what happens next: Jin Rou believes that he's just caring for his plants and animals, channeling his tiny pool of qi into the land to help it grow. His rooster and later some other animals on the other hand notice that they are slowly getting sapient and unusually strong. But some of the people in the region (and the readers, of course) learn that something unbelievable is going on on that farm, something the power-hungry cultivators could never have noticed... Spoiler: this story is not about peaceful and boring farm life. 

Style/Story/Grammar: The story is told in third-person internal style with multiple points of view per chapter. They are following either the growing number of central characters (Jin Rou, some other humans, the farm animals turned disciples) or others (some side characters, even some classic xianxia antagonists). This has the effect of narrating each scene in the most funny or exciting way. The "funny" aspect is very strong, I would rate the various variants of comedy as the most central part/tag of the story. There's innuendo (have you noticed the Impressively Strong Cock on the cover?), funny scenes (e.g. we are shown how the MC's actions are misinterpreted by characters who are only used to classic xianxia tropes), and a large amount of harmless but funny culture shock (western holiday traditions introduced to an unsuspecting xianxia populace). 

This is a xianxia cultivation story and at the same time, it is not a xianxia cultivation story. The common tropes of arrogant young masters, breakthroughs and mystic energy flows happen, but only as a parody. Whenever they get in contact with the central characters, they get pointed out, diverted, tied into knots, subverted and beaten by the powers of harmony and balance.

Everything has a light and easy feeling, the "simple" slice-of-life moments feel realistic, the romance develops believably. Scenes about Jin Rou and his fa(r)mily just having a "normal" day or doing some task are described in loving ways. The few fights are kept short and are more of a way to show how incredibly strong our protagonists are. 

The flow of the descriptions and word choice is good, but nothing extraordinary. The pacing is good, a mix of slow slice of life moments and month-long time skips. Most of the grammar and spelling is okay, but there is a handful of errors per chapter. Very repetitive errors. I'm deducting an extra star because they have been pointed out often enough and still happen.

Characters: This part is at the same time rather simple and not simple. On the one hand, the personality of each character can be described in only a few words ("friendly, fun-loving, strong without noticing"; who could that be?) and most characters fall into one of these three groups: down to earth, good-natured, helpful; honest, reliable, wise; or classic cultivator a-holes. This would usually mean a 3-star subscore. On the other hand, they are no one-dimensional paper cutouts, they fit very well into their parts of the story. Most importantly, there's clearly character development going on and their personalities change based on what they experience. The most impressive change is the titular rooster's, rather early into the story.

All in all, this is an extremely funny xianxia subversion. The single best part is the group of animals who turn into cultivator disciples and interact awesomely with others, that's a narrative path I have never seen before in any story. 

I admit...I saw this silly picture of a chicken in 1st place on RRL rankings and I thought this would be a trash novel that somehow got boosted...

But after starting to read it, I actually enjoyed the world, the characters.

It's far from perfect, filled with ideas that don't always feel at all planned. The characters have their moments, but also fall flat sometimes. The farm animals are a great concept and have been deevloped quite a bit, but I also feel there's some difficulty in sustaining the plot around them, when they often seem to act as comic foils. The worldbuilding too is challenged by the can-do-no-evil savant OPness that lends itself so well to comedy but poorly to actually showing more complicated social interactions.

Nevertheless, the story has kept me intrested with slice of life elements, random Canadian elements that are funny to see in a xianxia setting, and a decently touching romance so far.

Beware of Chicken will bring you laughs, adventure and hopefully a continuing lark through the world of cultivation from the perspective of a non-Daoist, down-to-earth farmer.

Keep it up!

This story is actual gold. My only regret in reading it is that I didn't discover it when there were already a couple thousand chapters for me to binge. The MC is actually sane and all of the side characters have, well, character. No overplayed sect arc here, just good old fashioned farming and one scary fucking rooster. Hilarious and genre defying. 

I'm enjoying it a lot so far. Laid-back vibes with some lighthearted comedy sprinkled in, but still engaging and leaving you wanting for more. Definitely a joy to read if you're looking for something nice and relaxing, I'd recommend it. So far, there hasn't been much in the way of some big plot, only some things brewing on the horizon, so I'm looking forward to that. No grammar issues as far as I can tell. I was surprised to see it near the top of Best Rated with "only" around 10k views, but now I kinda get it, there isn't much to criticize even if it isn't your type of novel imo.

Love this story

Whimsical and profound in an unpretentious and endearing way

characters are lovely to get to know 

and just really nice! Slice of life esque meet isekai wuxia and just really wholesome!

It flows well and has good pacing and unlike many serials imports a good feeling after each chapter