Raising Demons

Raising Demons is a classical xianxia novel by the web author Jun Bujian, about three million characters long and completed. The story is set in a world on the brink of collapse because cultivators have plundered the resources of heaven and earth to excess: spiritual energy has been drawn out, mountains and rivers have been mined, and the world is like an overdrawn warehouse, withering bit by bit, while cultivators know this full well yet have neither the power nor the intention to make amends. In the rift of the age, an ordinary modern young man accidentally travels through time and becomes a poor village youth—a scholar of humble birth, lofty ambition, strict self-discipline, and outstanding talent, determined to pass the imperial examinations and become the top scholar. Yet just after passing the xiucai examination, he is posted to the countryside as a village official, beginning a grassroots period in the style of "up to the mountains and down to the villages." It is in this remote mountain village that he discovers he can awaken the ordinary objects and creatures around him, making benches, hoes, brooms, abacuses, the four treasures of the study, and even a block of bluestone come to life as demons. These demon spirits are not fierce monsters but rather like sprites of heaven and earth, able to nourish and repair the hollowed-out world. With a group of "little ones" of different personalities, the protagonist starts by improving farming, building irrigation works, and opening schools, gradually turning the poor mountain village into a self-sufficient haven where humans and demons help each other; yet in the eyes of cultivators, demon spirits are fine resources, and the undercurrents between humans and demons, and between the mortal world and the immortal sects, unfold from there. The book uses a light, humorous tone to write farming and raising, with a flavor of tales of gods, ghosts, and strange beings.