The Great Immortal Official

The Great Immortal Official is a xianxia novel by the web author Dark Eggplant, serialized on Qidian from July 28, 2018 to its conclusion on June 30, 2019, totaling roughly 2.58 million characters across 879 chapters (including extras and a completion note). The protagonist, Chu Xian, is a poor scholar with nothing but a brush—he cannot even protect his own mother. A dream of a golden millet grants him a whole other lifetime of memories: in the dream he read every book under heaven and witnessed all the affairs of the world. Upon waking, these memories sink into his sea of consciousness and condense into a "Divine Sea Library," which he can consult at any time and which gives him total recall. The story is set in a great world where gods and Buddhas reign supreme: the skies are filled with immortals and buddhas, and in the mortal realm immortal officials wield the brush, with the ledgers of life and death written on their desks. The dynasty in question maintains an official registry; once an official's name is entered therein, he gains the blessing of sacred power and can wield official arts, with ranks running from the ninth grade to the first. A Grand Secretariat oversees all affairs, and the court permits officials to cultivate immortality, giving rise to the special system of the "immortal official." Chu Xian dazzles the imperial examination hall with five arts in a single sitting, entering officialdom as a ninth-rank investigating brush-bearer and going on to serve as county deputy of Dinghai and other posts. He solves cases like a god, cracking long-unsolved mysteries, striking at corruption, and reforming local powers, all while practicing both martial and immortal arts, his cultivation rising from the Out-of-Body stage through the Divine Gate and beyond. Along the way he befriends Shen Ziyi and others, finds love with Bai Zijin, and is drawn into the underworld of ghosts, court factional strife, and the turbulence of imperial succession, his foes shifting from the local tyrant Feng Kuai to the Limitless Golden Immortal Luo Du, who schemes to become a god through the power of faith. The book's defining feature is that it makes the "immortal court officialdom" its main thread: the protagonist contends not for cultivation realms but for the laws and titles written on immortal officials' desks; the appeal lies in court intrigue and the brush as sword, not mere spell-slinging and leveling up.