Establishing the Dao Court

Establishing the Dao Court is an Eastern fantasy novel by the web novelist Daoist Master Fierce Tiger (formerly writing as Ximen Feixue). It was serialized on Qidian from December 2012 to its completion in June 2013, running about 1.66 million characters across 808 chapters. The story is set in an age of dharma decline: since the late Ming, the link between Heaven and Earth has been severed, Daoist talismans can no longer reach the celestial court, and the transmission of Daoist arts has withered. Yang Chenyu, a twenty-four-year-old orphan, is the young abbot of Azure Dragon Temple atop Phoenix Cry Mountain, scraping by on meager offerings at his run-down shrine. By chance he receives a talisman decree from the Elder Lord and is appointed River God of Xiangshui. From then on he builds his standing on divine office and advances through merit: he dispenses talisman water to heal the sick, summons clouds and rain to break droughts, gathers incense offerings, enlightens monsters into subordinate clerks, and one by one appoints mountain gods, earth gods, and water lords. He then discovers he can travel between two worlds, the other being a fantastic realm thronged with gods. Using modern material conditions and institutional thinking, he forges Daoist soldiers in the other world, fells mountains and breaks shrines, encroaches on the authority of foreign deities, and drags the high and mighty gods down from their altars; all the while he founds a sect in both worlds, spreads the immortal Dao, and ultimately restores the majesty of the ancient Dao Court. The author describes the work as a "three-no product": no stud protagonist, no harem, no romance, with the emphasis on the divine-way system, the mechanics of incense and merit, and the clash of Eastern and Western pantheons.