Sword Knocks at the Heavenly Gate

Sword Knocks at the Heavenly Gate is a long xianxia web novel by the author Wutou D. It began serialization on Qidian on September 20, 2016, and was completed on September 11, 2020, totaling about 2.32 million Chinese characters in 1,012 chapters, divided into three volumes: "Slow Years in White Cloud Monastery," "Ten Thousand Swords Leave the Autumn Water," and "Treading the Ten Provinces, Slaying Yama." The story opens in Erlang Village of the Tianyan Kingdom. The boy Li Yunsheng and his father, Li Shanzhu, spend ten years seeking immortals without success; the Li family has declined because of a curse from an evil monk (or, some say, a foolish figure) in earlier years, and the men of the family rarely live long. After his father's death, Li Yunsheng is taken in by the Autumn Water Sect, but because he has a "rootless immortal vein" and cannot build a dan embryo, he is rejected by the mainstream blessed lands; because of his "clear luminous dao heart," he is accepted as a disciple by the reclusive farmer Yang Wanli and enters White Cloud Monastery, famous for its farm work, becoming its youngest disciple. At White Cloud Monastery, he carries water and waters trees, bringing a thousand-year-old locust tree into bloom, reads and plays chess, studies sword techniques, befriends Sang Xiaoman, Jiang Lingxue, and others, and, relying on a heaven-granted soul and extraordinary insight, studies the dao at Yellow Crane Tower and masters the Autumn Water sword techniques. As his cultivation deepens, he is drawn into conflicts among the Immortal Alliance, the demon clans, and the powers of the various provinces, endures trials such as having his bones cut and replaced, traveling the Ten Provinces, and the Mugu Forest hunt, and gradually uncovers the hidden historical conspiracy of the Ten Provinces continent. With the poetic line "Half a pot of White Cloud, home ten thousand miles away; one sword of Autumn Water chills the Ten Provinces" as its undercurrent, the work depicts a youth who, amid the warmth of his sect, the help of close friends, and confrontation with sworn enemies, holds fast to his dao heart and knocks at the heavenly gate with his sword.