But Motoni's obscurities are caused by something else. And increasingly I think the something else is that she's writing witless BL (only taking it very very seriously) and would be quite surprised that you think she's writing a mystery or a drama or even a psychologically complex love story. She puts in 'notes towards' all those things in the course of the story, but the story is really an erotic fantasy about guys screwing, and that's why all these people are screwing for unlikely reasons under unlikely circumstances. Which I could live with if there wasn't all this other bumpf getting in the way, to say nothing of extended conversations about 品 and 格 in which those extremely general terms are never defined.
Hence I am scratchy and itchy and may have to drop Japanese entirely in favour of some Aubrey Maturin sunlight and common sense.