The Gate of Truth

The Gate of Truth is a long web novel by Jian E Xukong, an author on Qidian Chinese Network. The protagonist is Wang Fang, a university student about to graduate and step into society. A chance incident grants him extraordinary power and lets him see a world he could never have imagined. At the story's opening, he finds himself in boundless darkness and endless void, standing guard before a huge, ancient door—a door carved with intricate and profound patterns and said to support an entire world. Whenever the door collapses, the mountains, rivers, seas, sun, moon, and stars within it all return to dust, and then a new door slowly rises and the world is reborn. Wang Fang is thus trapped in a repeating cycle, witnessing the world's destruction and re-creation again and again and facing his own fate each time. He must survive in the cracks of the cycle, break free of his bonds, and cross this door in pursuit of what is called "truth." The work takes alchemy as its core and blends the occult, philosophical reflection, and a cultivation system; starting from a Fullmetal Alchemist-style conception, it gradually extends to the real world and a vaster multiverse of worlds, opening a discussion of power, rules, civilization, and the limits of humanity. How the protagonist conducts himself after gaining extraordinary power, and how he treats others and the world, form the book's sustained tension.