The Beginning

The Beginning is a long Eastern fantasy novel by Gao Lou Da Sha, a platinum author on Yuewen Group's Qidian. It was completed on Qidian on August 20, 2020, running to about 6.2185 million Chinese characters in 1,783 chapters. The story begins in Datian Town, nestled against Xiaoyu Mountain: the town has little and poor farmland, and its people have hunted for generations. The boy Qin Haoxuan comes from a family that has studied for generations but is forbidden to hold office; his father farms, and his mother takes in washing to supplement the household income. He goes hunting in the mountains with adults at eight and hunts alone by ten. At twelve, one summer, while chasing a roe deer and gathering herbs in a valley on Xiaoyu Mountain, he is bitten on the web of his right hand by a small five-colored snake and falls unconscious. When he wakes, he finds that his soul can attach itself to the snake and move freely back and forth between the snake's body and his own. In snake form he is immune to all poisons, unusually sensitive to rare herbs, able to overawe wild beasts, and leaves a distinctive scent that lets him find his way. Every night Qin Haoxuan sends his soul into the mountains to gather precious medicinal herbs to sell and support his family, at the cost of exhaustion the next day. Just then, immortals come down from the mountain to select disciples with immortal affinity. He barely passes and enters the Taichu Sect, but his aptitude is judged extremely dull, far below that of his rival Zhang Kuang. Having taken the first step, Qin Haoxuan gradually sees that the greed, self-interest, and sycophancy of the cultivation world are no less than in the mortal realm. To cultivate in peace, he must use the snake body to slip into perilous places such as the Valley of Absolute Immortal Poison, collecting herbs and treasures and steadily building his strength. With the core line "A thousand flowers bloom from one tree; the Daoist schools under heaven are one family. Spells may take a thousand forms, but the human heart never changes," the work builds a realm system of "dao bone first, immortal seed after," with seven colors of immortal seed (gray, brown, green, orange, red, gold, purple) and stages such as breaking the seed and putting down roots. From a starting point of mediocre aptitude, it tells of a boy surviving amid resource struggles and sect infighting and defying fate to change his destiny.