Taihao

Taihao is a long classical xianxia novel by the web author Wuji Shuchong, serialized on Qidian Chinese starting in May 2014 and completed in December 2015. It runs about 4.56 million characters and over 1,300 chapters, divided into six volumes: "Kun Fish," "Cloud Peng," "Xuanzhen," "Flying Immortal," "Great Way," and "Primordial Beginning." The title comes from the meaning "Taihao is Heaven"; the author takes the allusion "the harmony of Taihao" from Huainanzi as the conception and lays out an expansive world of cultivation. The story begins with the youth Jiang Yuanchen's "butterfly dream"–style immortal encounter: in an immortal dream he passes through a vast world, and after waking he resolves his dao heart and sets out on the path of seeking the Way and truth. He later joins the Taixu Dao Sect, one of the nine great immortal sects, entering through illusion arts and water arts, with the River Diagram as his natal treasure. He rises step by step within the sect, and after descending the mountain for trials he moves among the immortal sects as a sect envoy, coordinating alliances and sorting out the world's waterways, then takes part in the conflict between Dao and demons, plans the matter of the Investiture of the Gods, and advances step by step toward the Taiyi realm. The book's core premise is "immortal Dao of freedom, divine Dao of governing the world"; the author weaves traditional mythological material such as the Investiture of the Gods, Mount Shu, and the primordial world into a self-consistent power system and ladder of realms, prizing foreshadowing and plotting. It is slow to start but grand in scope, and is regarded as a rare "dao-heart" work among game-style xianxia.