The Sword Demon Carries Fragrance

The Sword Demon Carries Fragrance is a wuxia-xianxia novel by author Lin Jian. It was first serialized on Huanjian Shumeng in March 2011, completed in 2012, and revised by the author over several years; in August 2022 the final revised edition, The Sword Demon Carries Fragrance 2022, was released on Zongheng Chinese. The book runs about 1.785 million characters in 245 chapters across fifteen volumes, from Volume One: Past Sorrows Never Rest to Volume Fifteen: May We Endure. The work builds on the six-realm setting (gods, demons, immortals, monsters, humans, ghosts) of the classic Chinese single-player game The Legend of Sword and Fairy, and reuses some of its characters, weapons, moves, and locations, such as the Demon Locking Tower and Inner Shu Mountain. The story begins in the mortal world at the Mingjian Hall: its master Situ Sheng is peerless with the sword, and his second and third brothers, Han Feng and Ji Yun, are as close as one body. Han Feng's son Han Ye and the master's adopted daughter Situ Yunmeng have known each other since childhood; starting from a small vow, their story eventually stirs the winds of all six realms. Han Ye bears the name "Little Yama" and is called the "Sword Demon"; Situ Yunmeng is in truth the reincarnation of the immortal Qingtian Lanxiang of the divine realm; the swordswoman Xue Yan passes through identities as a disciple of the Bishui Palace and then of the Holy Book Medical Immortal, ultimately becoming the soul of the demonic sword. The three form the core "iron triangle" driving the plot, roaming the jianghu and becoming entangled in martial grudges and god-demon conflicts. Chapter titles are mostly named after ci poem patterns and concise fixed-length phrases, incorporating Eastern mythological elements such as Nüwa, Chiyou, and the Five Spirit Sacred Beasts, interspersed with classical life imagery of poetry, wine, the qin and chess, strategy, and food. The book's theme is "cherishing fate," and it closes with a relatively open ending: after their trials, the main characters still choose to stay together. A sequel, Carefree True Immortal, tells the story two years after the main tale ends.