High Arts Reach the Divine

High Arts Reach the Divine is a long novel about traditional Chinese martial arts by web author Shenbi Maliang. It was first serialized around 2015 on Heiyan (Ruochu) Literature Network, runs about 2.99 million characters across more than 770 chapters, and is completed. The story is narrated in the first person. When the protagonist Guan Ren is still a fifth grader, he witnesses an old man in a military coat on a frozen river in his northeastern hometown shatter the ice with a single palm strike of Bajiquan power to save someone. That "heng-ha" sound is called "high art that shakes the soul," and from then on a seed of martial ambition is planted in his heart. In middle school, Guan Ren is bullied by classmates including Qi Kai, so he seeks out the fish farmer Ma Biaozi, a Bajiquan inheritor, to learn martial arts. With a few quick-success techniques he beats the school bully in public and for the first time understands "martial virtue" and "responsibility." He later trains horse-stance foundation work with a southern Iron Line Fist inheritor and systematically studies power generation and power concealment under a Xingyi Quan master. After graduating high school he steps in to teach a local thug at a gold mine a lesson, and in college he defends Taiji fellow students oppressed by a karate fighter, drawing challenges from overseas experts and leading him into a hidden "national martial arts underworld." Bajiquan, Iron Line Fist, Xingyi, Taiji, Baguazhang, Tongbei, Xinyi, and other fierce styles appear in turn as masters spar and demonstrate techniques. The protagonist hones himself through international matches, forbidden-zone expeditions, and underworld conflicts, pursuing the martial realm of "shattering the void and seeing the divine." The book concludes with "Realizing the Realm of Divine Connection," combining passionate combat with exposition of traditional martial arts philosophy.