Seeking Demons

Seeking Demons is a classical xianxia novel by the web author Yun Wuchang, consisting of seventy-one chapters and completed in November 2016. It was mainly serialized on web platforms and has not been officially published in paper form. The story follows the youth Zhang Ruyun as he explores traces of demons and spirits across the land of Shenzhou; walking and cultivating along the way through a jianghu where spirits, ghosts, immortals, and demons coexist, he experiences events such as "The Abduction of a Bride at the Western Kunlun" and "Peril at Puji Temple," and gradually, from a naive youth, becomes embroiled in the conflicts among sects and powers such as the Qiankun Sect and the Chaos Heaven. Other major characters include Shen Qixia, Yinniang, Yanniang, and Fuyunzi; through their meetings and partings, the author draws the boundary between demon and human, good and evil, as anything but clear. The book uses a classical vernacular style and a chapter-based structure, with chapter titles often in neatly parallel, poetic phrasing; the opening already offers lines as clear and ordered as "The jewel is hidden in its box; youth is not yet frivolous" and "The flood dragon first enters the sea; on a rainy night a beauty comes." The overall prose is plain and fresh, focused on human feeling rather than mere leveling-up and monster-slaying. The prefatory poem—"Flower shadows brush the lotus, the whole garden grieves; rosy clouds reflect the leaves, hidden before the steps. The soaring dragon maiden, at the dusk of a dead-end road; when will the lonely cloud drift?"—can also be read as a portrait of the book's emotional tone: a youth who cannot see through the red dust and cannot stand the ways of the mundane world asks, on his demon-seeking journey, about his own heart of the Dao and where he belongs. Reading the carefully proofread version circulated online as "Zhixuan Cangshu" offers a relatively complete text of all seventy-one chapters.