The Immortal Official's Path

The Immortal Official's Path is a wuxia-xianxia web novel written by Gui Tianjue and serialized on Zongheng Chinese Network. The protagonist, Lin Ran, is an ordinary mortal who, by a stroke of luck—obtaining a golden mushroom—is recommended by the Supreme Lord Laozi and enters the Heavenly Court as the lowliest horse groom, plunging him into the vortex of strife among the four realms of Heaven, Buddha, demons, and gods. Trapped at the bottom of the Imperial Horse Pasture, looked down upon and bullied, he can rely only on his hidden strength, fortuitous encounters, and shrewd maneuvering to rise step by step, from horse groom to a power in his own right. The story plays off the classic characters and events of Journey to the West: the reincarnation of the Golden Cicada, Sun Wukong’s imprisonment beneath Five Elements Mountain, the fall of Marshal Tianpeng—all are given entirely different inner accounts through the protagonist’s mouth, their karmic entanglements extraordinarily complex. The plot then expands across multiple threads—the Immortal Martial Assembly, herding in the mortal realm, the Ice Soul Sect, Five Tiger Mountain, the Guanghan Palace—as the Heavenly Court’s internal factional rivalries and the order of heavenly law gradually surface, and the protagonist’s origins and the shifting shape of the four realms are slowly revealed. The work’s main draws are its “immortal bureaucracy” style of promotion, intrigue, and black humor, ultimately leading to a conspiracy surrounding the identity of the Jade Emperor and a great war of the four realms, closing with the protagonist ascending to the position of Immortal Emperor. After years of serialization, the book was completed with updates in 2025.