The Chronicle of Huntian

The Chronicle of Huntian is a classical xianxia novel by the web author Shierzi Nanshen, serialized on Zongheng Chinese Network. It comprises eleven volumes and 954 chapters, totaling about 3.885 million characters, and was completed in February 2022. The protagonist, Luo Yu, has borne a pair of strange birthmarks on his arms since birth—shapes of dark and white swimming fish and a flying dragon's shadow—that seem to foretell an origin different from ordinary people. Carrying memories and burdens from a past life, he cultivates diligently while constantly asking who he really is and where he comes from. The novel opens with the self-narration "a first life lived in ordinariness" and "a second life of hazy ascetic practice"; in his third life he simply forgets the past, yet amid the marvel of "dark and white fish turning into a dragon's shadow, seven steps beneath his feet unfolding heaven and earth, three feet above his head grasping the cosmos," he walks toward a vaster world. The book follows Luo Yu's growth and adventures as its main thread, beginning with his entry into the world to take a master and his cultivation in the sect, then gradually unfolding the grand background of the "Boundless Domain," where the source of heaven and earth across nine eras is unstable, a hidden source grows into "Hundun," and the whole of the three thousand immortal realms is swept up, ultimately pointing toward a battle over the sea of clouds that decides survival. The style leans toward classical xianxia, valuing atmosphere and chapter-style titles, with prose rich in poetic expression; it is a long cultivation work of great length whose core is "seeking the Way" and "becoming an immortal."