Peerless Ex

Peerless Ex is a long xianxia novel by the Jiangxi author Yue Qianchou, following The Scum of the Cultivation World, Flying to the Heavens, and Daojun. Serialized on Qidian from June 15, 2019, to June 2020, it runs about 2.41 million Chinese characters. The story is set after the primordial age, when the gods established the immortal realm and the passages between worlds were placed under guard. The protagonist, Lin Yuan, is a down-and-out youth in Bujue City whose romance is opposed by his lover's family; his legs are broken and he is driven from the city. He wanders for three hundred years until a chance encounter brings him a mysterious inheritance, and he becomes the "Overlord" who stirs up the immortal capital. When he challenges the Heavenly Court again, he is struck by a rare poison, the Demon-Sealing Zhi, and retreats in defeat, returning to Bujue City aboard a kun-ship as a limping vagrant. Everything has changed: his former lover, Qin Yi, is now president of the Qin Chamber of Commerce and the richest woman in Bujue City. Claiming an old debt, she keeps him at her side as assistant to the hired Giant Spirit Guard Luo Kang'an. Just as the Qin clan bids for the Giant Spirit project and the Zhou and Pan chambers join forces against it, Lin Yuan, in his most inconspicuous role, dismantles the trap step by step for Qin Yi through information asymmetry, timing, and the calculation of human hearts. He later enters Lingshan to cultivate and is drawn into the infighting of the immortal court, the remnants of the former dynasty, and the struggle over the passages between the three realms, moving from personal grievance toward a reordering of the three realms. The novel transplants modern elements—mobile phones, video calls, bidding, mecha-like Giant Spirits—into the immortal realm, following a "xianxia skin, urban bones" strategy-driven approach, with the romance centered on Lin Yuan and Qin Yi, the "ex" pair. The book is complete and has not been published in print.