Divine Treasures

Divine Treasures is an urban supernatural long-form web novel by Qidian Platinum author Da Yan, following Golden Eyes, The Prodigy Physiognomist, and The Precious Mirror. Serialized on Qidian from late 2015, it is complete at roughly 5.25 million characters and over 1,500 chapters. The story begins at a dilapidated Daoist temple on Mount Fang in Jinling: the young Daoist Fang Yi was abandoned by his parents at birth and taken in and raised by the temple's old Daoist. The old Daoist is a recluse versed in extraordinary arts; under him Fang Yi learns to read and write, practices Daoist martial arts, and acquires esoteric skills such as qi-reading, talismans, and geomancy, and he wears a kapala—a Buddhist ritual object made from the brow bone of a great monk. After the old Daoist passes away, Fang Yi, following his master's dying command, descends the mountain and steps with childhood friends into the bustling city. In a car accident the kapala shatters and fuses into his body, and from then on he possesses the strange ability to discern the age of objects and trace the origins of antiquities. With this gift and his wide knowledge, he moves through the antiques market, starting from bargain-hunting at street stalls and inspecting goods in Liulichang, appraising bronzes, judging calligraphy and paintings, identifying Yixing clay, and assessing jade, making friends and enemies alike in the world of antiques and curios; along the way he investigates his own origins and the history of the ritual object, is drawn into ancient-tomb mysteries and the conflicts of various factions, and gradually touches a larger world hidden behind the mundane, one concerned with cultivation and the transcendent. Taking the antiques trade as its skeleton, the work fuses treasure appraisal, jianghu intrigue, arcane arts, and cultivation into one, with brisk pacing and dense thrills; it is another representative work of Da Yan's "treasure-appraisal" mode of writing.