The Rules of the Daoist Order

The Rules of the Daoist Order is a long-running xianxia web novel by Ba Baofan, serialized on Qidian from November 2014 and completed in early 2020, with a main text of about 3.76 million characters. It is regarded by readers as one of the representative works of "officialdom cultivation fiction" and shares a world with the author's later novel Where Has the Daoist Master Gone? The story opens in March of the twelfth year of the Jiajing reign of the Ming dynasty, in Zhao Village, Shiquan County, Long'an Prefecture, Sichuan Provincial Administration Commission. Zhao Ran, a section-level official on Earth in his previous life, transmigrates into the body of a peasant youth of the same name, "Zhao Sanlang." He soon discovers this is not the Ming he knows: in this world the Daoist order stands above the imperial court, Daoist priests outrank examination-selected officials, and talismans, elixirs, spirit demons, and ritual ceremonies are everyday matters. With both parents dead and the family fields coveted by the new clan head, his Fourth Uncle, Zhao Ran sells the ancestral land for traveling funds, gives up the civil examination path, and sets out for the Wuji Academy on Mount Wuji to seek entry into the Daoist order. From there he starts as a menial laborer and stoker, struggling through a grassroots ecosystem where "if you want to cultivate, start by scrubbing toilets": learning to deal with local bullies and unspoken rules, learning to tell misplaced notions of orthodox and villain apart, and learning to climb the Daoist hierarchy step by step using the bureaucratic experience and social savvy of his previous life. Externally he contends with enemy states through formation magic and divine powers; internally he maneuvers against others with cunning and tact. On the secular side, he earns merit through benevolent governance, promotes reforms such as the Green Sprouts policy, and confronts the backlash of entrenched interests. With a solid promotion arc, meticulous plotting, and vivid ensemble of major and minor characters, the book is a long scroll of workplace and officialdom life dressed in the robes of cultivation fiction.