Immortal Gourd

Immortal Gourd is a long classical xianxia novel by Liulang de Hama. It was serialized on Qidian from January 2010 and completed in 2011, running to roughly 2.56 million characters and over seven hundred chapters. The story is set in Baishi Town, a remote town in the Li Tang era: a group of mischievous children pelt a slovenly old Taoist with stones and tiles, and only Jiao Fei, a sallow-faced boy who has always loved reading idle books, sees that the man is no ordinary figure. He chases after him and takes him as his master, receiving the Black Water True Method of the Divine Sect's demonic lineage and stepping onto the path of cultivation. Separated from his master by circumstance, he half by luck and half by cunning enters a major Daoist sect under a borrowed identity, cultivating hard with no one to guide him and enduring contempt while carefully hiding his true origins. Once his cultivation reaches a modest level, he ventures out to sea, exploring and adventuring, making close friends and powerful enemies alike, growing step by step amid the open and covert struggles of the orthodox and heterodox factions. The book constructs four cultivation systems—the Mysterious Daoist school, the Divine Sect's demonic lineage, the Buddhist school, and the miscellaneous outer paths—with treasures progressing from talisman implements to ritual implements to treasures, and takes as its backbone the principle that the Dao heart matters most and external things are light. It is regarded as the beginning of the "Immortal Gourd" strand of classical xianxia. Framed by the motto "A thousand spells, infinite great ways—I ask only this: can one attain longevity?", the novel follows a resolute, quick-witted young Taoist's persistent pursuit of immortality through tense yet joyful trials.