Human Desire

Human Desire is an urban cultivation novel by Xu Gongzi Shengzhi, part of his "Heaven, Earth, Human, Ghost, Spirit, and Deity" series. Serialized on Qidian from September 2007 to July 2008, it runs roughly 1.715 million Chinese characters across more than three hundred chapters and shares the same Eastern cultivation worldview as Divine Wandering and Ghost Grip. The story is set in the fictional city of Wuyou in the nation of Zhixu: Bai Shaoliu, known as "Xiao Bai," a recent university graduate working in the financing risk department of a foreign-owned money house, was born with a pair of extraordinary eyes—he can see things moving extremely fast or far away, and can also faintly glimpse the truest desires in others' hearts. A mysterious assassin calling himself "Qingchen" posts target announcements online, killing corporate executives, spoiled rich kids, corrupt lawyers, and even councillors in succession, throwing the whole city into uproar while the constabulary fails to catch him. Bai Shaoliu is drawn into the turmoil after accidentally rescuing the wounded Qingchen, and from the money house counter he steps ever deeper into the undercurrents where worldly capital and the cultivation world intertwine: he serves as a security escort for a wealthy young lady, endures layoffs, a car accident, and the indignity of unemployment, and studies methods such as the "Desire-Seizing Mind Observation" under the guidance of the mysterious master Feng Junzi. After befriending many figures from both the Kunlun cultivation lineage and the Western Church, his cultivation and character slowly change. With the premise "if the human heart could be measured, how much surging desire would one see," the novel weaves financial warfare, martial grudges, and Daoist alchemical philosophy into a single modern urban setting, portraying a naive youth learning to mature amid a flood of desire—and learning to guard his original heart.