Talisman Physician of the World

Talisman Physician of the World is an urban cultivation novel by the web author Ye Tiannan, serialized on Qidian from 2010 to 2019, running to more than two million characters and now complete; according to public sources, it has not been formally published in print. The protagonist, Ye Nan, is an ordinary young doctor scraping by in the city, practicing medicine for years in a placid, uneventful life. One day he treats a special patient and is given a small jade pendant in return; the pendant grants him the memories and powers of an ancient sorcerer, and from then on he walks a no-longer-ordinary path. The work combines traditional Chinese medical diagnosis and treatment with Daoist talisman arts: Ye Nan faces patients with a doctor's eye while using talismans and incantations to deal with perplexing illnesses and malevolent forces that modern medicine cannot explain, gradually revealing a hidden world beneath the everyday city. As the plot advances, he makes companions and is drawn into conflicts with demon clans, ghosts, and a human special-task agency, growing from a grassroots doctor into a cultivator capable of standing on his own, and finally shouldering the duty of guardianship in a greater crisis. The author practiced medicine for many years and writes clinic details and doctor-patient scenes with ease, which is what distinguishes this book from ordinary urban cultivation works.