Sovereign of the Gods

Sovereign of the Gods is a long xianxia novel by Zhai Zhu, a platinum author on Qidian, serialized from February 20, 2013 to March 13, 2015, totaling roughly 5.46 million Chinese characters. The protagonist, Jiang Nan, courtesy name Zichuan, is the fourth son of a scholarly family in the Central Earth of the Xuanming Yuan Realm; raised on books, he is scattered when a war between gods devastates the mortal world and drifts to the Kingdom of Jianwu, where, pressed by poverty, he sells himself into slavery at the Prince of Qi's manor. In the opening he secretly learns the manor's martial arts and buys a scorched white fox at a market, drawing him into a world far beyond his station—a widely quoted line, "Martial arts can reach the gods," states the book's core: reach the Divine Wheel realm and one can forge divine powers and transcend the mortal. The story starts in a small corner of the Qi manor and Luoxia Mountain; as Jiang Nan joins a sect and meets mentors and fellow disciples, the scope rises layer by layer: personal survival, the rise and fall of sects, the confrontation between the divine way and the immortal way, up to a vast game spanning all heavens and realms and the silence of epochs. Jiang Nan is bold yet cautious, loyal with clear limits, growing from a youth pushed by fate into a player who sets the board. The cast is excellent, with supporting characters each carrying their own "way" and lingering regrets; it is the starting point of Zhai Zhu's shared universe, and readers often regard its protagonist's power as the peak of his works.