Ten Thousand Immortals Pay Court

Ten Thousand Immortals Pay Court is a long xianxia/fantasy cultivation novel by the web novelist Happy Tragedy, serialized on Qidian from 2012 and now complete, totaling about 2.13 million Chinese characters in 526 chapters. The story opens with the cultivator Ye Feng dying in bitterness during an era when foreign races invade and the Central Plains fall; thanks to a strange small cauldron, the "Nine Heavens Mystic Cauldron," he is reborn back into his youth. Carrying the memory of his family's destruction in his previous life, he resolves to start over: first shoring up his foundations amid family infighting to avert old tragedies such as his mother's murder and his father's grave injury; then advancing by relying on the growth-type cultivation method that pairs with the cauldron, the Nine Heavens Mystic Classic, devouring water-element spiritual objects such as cold-jade marrow and fire-jade marrow; then joining sects such as the Yuntai Immortal Gate for training, accumulating cultivation capital in artifacts, talismans, formations, and pills while maneuvering among factions in overseas markets and immortal islands. As his cultivation climbs from Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, and Nascent Soul all the way to Spirit Transformation, Tribulation Crossing, and Mahayana, Ye Feng's opponents expand from family power-seekers to Japanese pirates and invading foreign races. With the throughline of "gather spiritual water, refine the Mystic Classic, strengthen the family, save the falling heaven," he seeks to reverse the fate of the Divine Land through a single cultivator's power, and the book closes with an open ending involving time travel. The work blends rebirth and revenge, hiding one's strength, the strong man's return, and resistance against foreign races; its pace is brisk and its progression line clear, making it a representative of the traditional satisfying xianxia style of Qidian.