A Mortal Asks Heaven

A Mortal Asks Heaven is the debut novel of web author Youyou Dihuang (real name Xiao Zhou), serialized and completed on Zongheng Chinese Network, totaling about 1.29 million Chinese characters. The protagonist, Lu Sheng, is a lowly beggar boy in the streets, his life as worthless as grass, yet he refuses to accept his fate. Through an unexpected stroke of luck he enters a cultivation sect and sets out on a path to question heaven itself as a mortal. Beginning with the beggars at Puji Temple, the protagonist trains successively at the Zhenwu Hall, Yuntai Peak, and Weiyang Peak; he obtains a mysterious fruit that clears his meridians, makes a name for himself at Longmen Terrace, debates elders at the Taihua Hall, meets figures such as Old Meng and Fairy Qingyin, and continually unlocks treasures and divine powers across locales including Kunlun Mountain, the Penglai World, the Netherworld Isles, and the Heaven-Reaching Tower; he undergoes a yin-spirit mutation and ultimately probes the Rihun Well and the ultimate secret of "Genesis." The book is threaded throughout by the question "Is a person's life—birth, aging, sickness, death, wealth, honor, poverty, and lowliness—all predestined?" and portrays a low-born youth's growth as he pits resilience and obsession against fate. The tone leans toward traditional Eastern fantasy, interweaving treasures, wondrous beasts, sect conflicts, and love and hate; it is a relatively early work in the mortal-path cultivation mode.