Yuan Long

Yuan Long is a long-running Eastern fantasy novel by the web author Ren Yuan. Serialization began on March 14, 2016, on the Zhangyue bookstore platform; the completed work runs about 3.3 million Chinese characters across 1,571 chapters. The story is set in a world centered on "yuan souls": everyone awakens a yuan soul at birth, and its grade determines a person's talent and prospects, with families, sects, and rival factions contending over yuan-soul resources. The protagonist, Wang Sheng, was originally a top sniper from Earth codenamed "Lone Wolf." During an airborne special mission he is transported into the yuan-soul world, where he awakens only the lowest-grade fragment of a carp soul and is dismissed as a worthless failure. Yet with the skills, tactical training, and modern knowledge honed over years, he turns defeat into victory again and again despite his rivals' contempt and attempts to kill him, rising from a small frontier town into the centers of power among families and sects. He keeps searching for a way to evolve his carp soul, ultimately achieving the "carp leaping the dragon gate"—his yuan soul advances step by step, even drawing him into a larger scheme involving the phoenix and ancient secret realms. The work's core appeal is the clash of modern thinking with fantasy rules; it moves at a brisk pace with dense combat scenes. It was the first book Ren Yuan published after moving to Zhangyue, and its animated and comic adaptations have extended its reach.