Here are some absolutely stunning illustrations by Anna Podedworna.
She's the author of the Polish edition cover, so I assume they are in the vol 1 book.
I'm in love with these. No shade on the English book illustrations, but I think this material calls for more of a mature style.
Just found this thread with a ton of beautiful illustrations. It's interesting to see all the different art styles.
So I read the manhua and watched the dongua, and now I'm in the novel at the point where WWX comes to take revenge on Wen Chao. And whoah, our cutesy protagonist is an absolute monster in that one, the way he revels in torturing Wen Chao. Like, I'm not saying Wen Chao doesn't deserve it, or that it's not understandable given the previous events, but damn. And the way he pets these zombies. That scene puts the reader squarely in Lan Wangji's shoes, and you absolutely get why he's disturbed by the sight. Although he might be just a little bit jealous of that one zombie, lol.
The donghua skips this scene altoghether and has WWX's reveal and Wen Chao's death merged with a war scene later on. I checked the manhua and it does show this episode step by step, but doesn't linger on the graphic details of Wen Chao's torture, and skips some of WWX's bloodthirsty lines.
Both of those adaptations have LWJ be like "demonic cultivation is bad, mmmkay?" and make him seem like he's just sticking to some guidelines, while the novel actually paints a dark picture of what WWX got himself into.
One more thought about Wen Zhuliu: in the novel scene, this menacing character gets absolutely pummeled by just two undead, making him feel kind of feeble. Like he's a one trick pony who melts cores and when he can't melt these zombies' cores, he's cooked, lol. I think the donghua handled him a bit better in this regard.
Rant over, lol, I was just so facinated by the comparison here!