Heart of Ten Thousand

Heart of Ten Thousand is a long fantasy novel by the web novelist Gunkai. It was serialized on Qidian from December 24, 2019 to its completion on August 27, 2020, running about 1.59 million Chinese characters across five volumes. The protagonist, Wang Yiyang, is an ordinary office worker who dies in a car crash while investigating the strange deaths of his grandfather Wang Xinlong and the members of a martial arts school, only to wake up two months before the tragedy. Reborn with the memories of his past life, he sets out to prevent the deaths of his grandfather and the school's members, with suspicion falling on the senior disciple Zhong Can and the mysterious organization "Mantis" behind him. Along the way, Wang Yiyang unexpectedly acquires a mysterious system that randomly generates a brand-new identity for him every week. These identities may be an assassin, a hypnotist, a mage, a martial artist, a member of an ancient race, a member of a secret organization, or the hidden director of a vast multinational conglomerate. Each new identity comes with its own abilities, resources and social ties, along with the troubles and mortal dangers that follow. Built around the core premise of "random identities," the novel follows the protagonist as he investigates the truth and breaks through his own limits by constantly switching and layering identities, ultimately touching on the nature of the "heart" and of reality itself. The work has been described as a fantasy version of Martin's Morning and continues Gunkai's dark, cold, Hong Kong comics-style narrative.