Immortal Escape

Immortal Escape is a long classical xianxia novel by the web author She Tun Jing (Whale-Swallowing Snake). Serialization began on Qidian Chinese Network on October 17, 2008, and concluded on September 15, 2012; the book runs to roughly 1.42 million characters across 342 chapters. The story opens at Qingsong Flat of the Luofu Sect, where the protagonist Kong Zhuo is an ordinary inner disciple: slightly plump, seemingly mild-mannered, given to gluttony and sleep and lax in his training, nicknamed by fellow disciples "the Pig of Luofu." He has no grand ambitions—his greatest wish is simply to "mooch food and live long"—and drifts along by the creed of live and let live. On a trip down the mountain to pay respects to his ancestors, Kong Zhuo stumbles upon the orthodox shamanic cultivation method The Great Sun Glazed Golden Body Formula, lost for tens of thousands of years, and his fate is diverted from then on. He goes on to acquire treasures, immortal arts, and sword techniques, and is drawn into sect strife, the struggle between good and evil, and vast upheavals in the Central Plains cultivation world, rising from a small figure who only wanted an idle life to become "the greatest accident and miracle" of the cultivation world. The novel takes the word "escape" as its theme: the protagonist excels at earth-escape and other life-preserving arts, and a style of cautious survival and striking from the shadows runs throughout; in its later stages the narrative shifts into the primordial mythos, where he crosses swords with legendary champions.