Knocking on the Immortal Gate

Knocking on the Immortal Gate is a classical xianxia novel by Shi San, a platinum author at Yuewen Group. Serialized on Qidian from May 2010 and completed in 2011, it runs to more than 1.4 million Chinese characters. The story begins with Shi Hong, a twelve-year-old village boy. Herding sheep on the mountain, he takes shelter from a sudden storm; when the sky clears, a bolt of lightning strikes him squarely on the head, and a barely visible golden spark merges into his body along with the flash. From then on his spiritual aperture opens, and his strength and intellect become extraordinary. A simple, honest boy who knew only sheep, fields, and could not even keep up at the village school is drawn step by step into the conflicts of the cultivation world. The novel's core conceit is "cultivating the dragon veins of the Nine Provinces": each region of the land has its own dragon vein with a distinct course, and cultivators forge themselves with the power of the earth veins, while above them lie primordial divine artifacts and ancient ferocious beasts, the scope unfolding layer by layer. On this path Shi Hong makes companions, encounters formidable enemies, and once stumbles by accident into an "immortal realm" utterly unlike anything imagined—no auspicious clouds there, only ruin and strangeness. Built on the keynote "I may be arrogant, but before the immortal way I am humble," the book tells how a boy who knows nothing of cultivation knocks open that vast heavenly gate through perseverance and luck. By comparison, it is one of Shi San's lighter, steadier works, which the author himself calls a joyful piece "cooked over a gentle fire."