The Blood Treasure Saga

The Blood Treasure Saga is a long mystery novel by Yuan Taiji, serialized and completed on Qidian and the original web version of the later published novel The Curse of Lu Ban. The story begins in the early years of the Republic of China: warlords carve up the land, foreign powers encroach, disasters multiply, and many people fall back on the esoteric crafts and arcane techniques handed down by their ancestors in order to survive, so that the world is full of danger and every step is fraught with peril. The novel is built on a legend: in ancient times, the strife of immortals destroyed the arts of cultivation, leaving eight baleful pits upon the earth and shattering the unity of the realm of Shenzhou; the task of sealing the baleful pits and securing the mortal realm falls to the two great master craftsmen Gongshu Ban and Mo Di and their descendants. The heirs of the two families seek auspicious sites and build sturdy structures to house eight treasures, agreeing that when the cycle of the eight extremes comes full circle, the treasures shall be cast into the baleful pits, preserving the unity of Shenzhou and the eternal security of the mortal realm. Twenty-four hundred years later, the cycle of the eight extremes is complete, and the various factions begin searching for and fighting over the eight treasures, opening a contest between justice and evil, charity and selfish desire. The book describes in abundance such mechanisms and arcane arrangements as the Upside-Down Dao, the Swallow-Return Corridor, the Mad-Dog Formation, the Ghost-Grinding Mill, the Northern Dipper Bridge, the Iron Hawk Cloud and the Hundred-Infant Wall, as well as such martial techniques as the Phoenix Nirvana, the Xingtian Slash, the Pit-Uprooting, the Cook Ding Blade and the Crystal Blade; its core theme is that "ghosts are dreadful, curses bizarre, insects and beasts vicious and venomous, but the truly terrifying thing is not spirits, ghosts, insects or beasts, but human beings." In his preface, the author dedicates the book to the skilled craftsmen of every trade who work for the good of the people.