Born Extraordinary

Born Extraordinary is a full-length web novel by the online author Shuixiaocong Shuishangpiao (real name Xie Rongpeng, later known by the pen name "Galaxy Nine Heavens"). Serialized on Qidian since 2005 and now complete at roughly 745,000 characters, it belongs to the national martial arts (guoshu) genre. Its protagonist, Bu Fan, is a bundle of contradictions from birth: his father, Bu Tiansheng, hopes he will rise above the crowd and make a name for himself, while his mother, Zhang Hua, wants only a safe, ordinary life with her son at her side—yet Bu Fan himself yearns for the path of his master, pursuing the ultimate in both martial arts and medicine. Set in a modern city, the novel unfolds across four volumes. Volume One, "Growing Up," follows Bu Fan's carefree childhood and his apprenticeship, beginning in a small mountain village courtyard and moving through encounters with an old gentleman, the laying of his foundation, and glimpses into the secrets of martial arts, grounding him in medicine and combat while also bringing partings from family and mentors and a personal breakthrough. From Volume Two onward, the trained Bu Fan descends the mountain into the city and university life, and a young man versed in both medicine and martial arts confronts a complex society: he must navigate campus and gang relationships of every stripe, get caught up in underworld plots and sect feuds, and work out his own code of conduct while healing the sick and punishing the wicked. Later volumes center on a martial arts tournament and a decisive battle against the demon sect, closing with "Nirvana." Rooted in traditional martial arts and Chinese medicine, the work is concerned with the transmission of guoshu and its place in the modern world, and within the urban adventure and righteous-revenge conventions of web fiction it expresses a contemporary vision of martial spirit and chivalric ethics.