Asking the Heart: A Tale of Immortal Heroes

Asking the Heart is a long classical xianxia novel by Guan Pingchao. It was first serialized on Qidian under the title The Smoke and Dust of the Immortal Path, and was renamed Asking the Heart when Huashan Literature and Art Publishing House began issuing it in volumes in 2006; the complete work runs about 1.55 million characters in 437 chapters. The story follows Zhang Xingyan, a street-smart youth from the shores of Poyang Lake: of ordinary family, quick-witted and fond of teasing, he nonetheless harbors the ambition to seek the Way. By chance he obtains a jade flute called "Divine Snow" that can summon wind and rain and a sword called "Investiture of the Gods" that looks like scrap iron, and so sets out on the path of cultivation, joining the Shangqing Palace and rising from master of the Four Seas Hall until he is drawn into a showdown with Meng Zhang of the South Sea dragon clan. The novel threads the whole work with the theme of "feeling": Yingju, the pampered daughter of the imperial garden; Lingyi'er, the willful dragon princess; Qiongtong, the spirit-beast girl who claims to be a fox demon; the Mei Xue spirit with her sorrowful origins; and a host of friends across generations—the Daoist priest Qinghe, the ghost king Xiaomang, the rain master Juntai, and the dragon kings of the Four Waterways—give this immortal path both flashing blades and the warmth of the mortal world. At the same time, the Queen Mother of the West's daughter, banished to the mortal realm, and the hidden scheme of gods and demons over the Six Realms entangle personal love with the grand currents of heaven and earth. Rather than piling up magic treasures and divine arts, the work is distinguished by prose steeped in poetic imagery, lively and twisting plots, and vivid, rounded characters; it is regarded as one of the representative works of Chinese online classical xianxia, and on its strength the author was later invited to write the novelization of the game Chinese Paladin.