The Ninth Under Heaven

The Ninth Under Heaven is a long urban xianxia novel by Eshi Laowu, a platinum author of Yuewen Group, serialized on Qidian.com from May 22, 2018. It runs about 3.59 million characters and 1,377 chapters, was completed in 2024, and was selected among the top one hundred works of the fourth Chenggua Online Literature Awards. The worldview is this: in the endless cosmos there are eight Grand Primordial Dao Principles, each already fused by a supreme power; yet no one knows that a ninth Dao Principle also exists in the universe, one that breaks through the Primordial and cannot be touched by anyone. The title derives from this. The protagonist, Di Jiu, comes from the Aaron Continent. Unable to cultivate because he lacks a martial root, and with his family destroyed, he crosses countless star rivers to reach Earth. On Earth he meets Di Zimo, who looks exactly like him and has already died, and inherits part of the latter's memories and identity, thus beginning a journey of cultivation in the modern city. The story's important starting point is the sudden appearance of "Fairy Star" near Earth in 2058: humanity explores the planet using quantum aerospace plane technology, and Chinese scientists discover its special entrance and name it after the fairy statue on the planet. Thereafter the setting continually expands, from Earth and Fairy Star to the Sheye Continent, the Small Central World, and even the Immortal Realm and Dao Realm, involving sect selections, formation cultivation, contests for the holy throne, fusion of Dao Principles, and grand concepts such as the "Twilight of the Immortal Realm." The author describes it as "an urban cultivation story somewhat different from ordinary urban immortal cultivation," one that will ultimately leave the city and head out into the vast starry sky. In its writing the book continues Eshi Laowu's brisk pace and dense payoff style, while attempting to strengthen the depiction of human nature and emotional transmission.