Renegade Immortal

Renegade Immortal is a long xianxia novel by the web author Er Gen. It began serialization on Qidian on June 8, 2009, and concluded in January 2012, running to roughly 6.57 million characters and more than two thousand chapters; it is regarded as one of the representative works of web xianxia. The story begins in a mountain village in the mortal state of Zhao: the youth Wang Lin, mediocre in talent and with mixed spiritual roots, is eliminated in the entrance examination of the Hengyue Sect. On the way home he falls off a cliff and by chance obtains a mysterious supreme treasure, the Heaven-Defying Bead, which harbors the remnant soul of the ancient powerhouse Situ Nan. With this as his turning point, he steps back through the gate of cultivation, enduring in silence and fighting for survival in a cultivation world where the weak are prey and sects trample one another. The blood feud of his exterminated family, along with relentless pursuit and desperate straits, gradually make his character solitary, decisive, and ruthless; and the appearance and loss of his dao companion Li Muwan become the starting point of an obsession that will last him millions of years. The book's guiding principle is "to follow is mortal, to defy is immortal," unfolding layer by layer the cultivation realms, sect strife, wars within and beyond the world, the inheritance of ancient gods, and the riddle of reincarnation. Wang Lin does not cultivate the smooth, long life permitted by the heavenly dao; he seeks to break free of his "ant's body" through the obsession of his own heart, and ultimately rises to the summit of the Xian Gang Continent. Passages such as "Turning Mortal" are especially praised; the tone is heavy and solitary, clearly different from breezy power-fantasy fare.