The Profligate Madman

The Profligate Madman is a long web novel by the online writer E Shi Lao Wu (real name Bai Quanming). It began serialization on Qidian Chinese Network on March 1, 2011, and was completed that October. The book runs about 1.58 million words and 531 chapters and is categorized as "supernatural powers." The protagonist, Lin Yun, originally lives on Tianhong Continent, where technology and cultivation coexist; he is both a top-tier electronics expert and pharmacologist and a cultivator of the extremely rare "star cultivation" method. In a fierce battle his soul is scattered, but it passes through a wormhole and is reborn into the body of a notorious profligate on Earth—one who has just been committed to a mental hospital. Once awake, Lin Yun deals with the troubles brought by his "madman" identity while using star source to heal and cultivate anew, transplanting otherworldly technology and knowledge into urban life. He is drawn from family disputes and workplace politics into ever larger conflicts of power. The novel continues the author's signature approach of "starting in the city and gradually shifting to a cultivation world," with brisk pacing and dense payoffs. It is also E Shi Lao Wu's first true long-form work, and during serialization it reached first place on Qidian's newcomer ranking.