Yin Immortal

Yin Immortal is a long-running xuanhuan cultivation novel by Tian Liren, a contracted author on Zongheng Chinese Network. Its main storyline was serialized on Zongheng from September 22, 2008, and concluded on January 31, 2015; it later moved to QQ Reading, where updates continued until September 12, 2020. The book spans roughly 371 chapters and 1.13 million Chinese characters. Its title evokes the idea of cultivating the yin spirit to attain immortality.

The protagonist, Lu Chen, begins as a lowly servant in the Han Prince's household. By chance he comes into possession of the Shaoyin Scripture (also known as the Shaoyin Scroll), and through a fortuitous "seven-star dream" unexpectedly enters the path of cultivation. The novel's core premise is that "the hun-soul is yin and the po-soul is yang": the yin spirit travels beyond the body, accumulating yin essence and practicing yin arts, while qigong training strengthens the body, tempering skin and flesh and forging sinew and bone. This yields a cultivation path that "balances essence and life and cultivates spirit and flesh together," pursuing both the transcendence of the yin spirit and the refinement of the physical body's qi and blood—starkly different from the common Daoist approach that emphasizes only yang qi and spiritual roots.

As he grows, Lu Chen repays a debt of gratitude to the fox-spirit Su Wutong by guarding her rituals for three days, helping her perform the secret art of shijie to be reborn through transmigration; Su Wutong in turn advises him to "join a sect and train the hun and po souls," pointing him toward the dual cultivation of yin spirit and qigong. Thereafter he roams the world, intervening whenever he encounters injustice, and is drawn into a series of empire-toppling conflicts—battling powerful foes, overthrowing the Great Zhou, and founding a new dynasty. He goes through the Ninefold Assembly of Lords, the stripping of vassal princes, campaigns against the four barbarian peoples, and conquest of the eight remotest regions, ultimately breaking through to the Martial God realm and becoming a "Yin Immortal."

The novel's worldbuilding includes special cultivation methods such as the Shaoyin Scripture, the seven-star dream, and the Five Symbols Sect, and features characters and factions including Princess Xiangyi, Chu Yuzhu, and the great Buddhist temple of the Western Seven Provinces, the East Shaolin. It is a Chinese-style cultivation epic that intertwines personal cultivation with the fate of family and empire and the fortunes of dynasties.