The Salvation of Cultivation Novels-Reading "Journey to the West" and "Exiled Immortal"

The Salvation of Cultivation Novels—Reading "Journey to the West" and "Exiled Immortal"

By: Heavenly Dao Xiao Hua, this article is dedicated in tribute to the two great masters, Xiao Qian and Tan Hua!

Keywords: Xiao Qian, Journey to the West, Path to the Sky, Instant Kill, Overlord Thunder God, Little Duan Tan Hua, Cultivation of the Godly Manual: Immortal Realm

Abstract: In today's cultivation novels, protagonists often defied heaven and changed their fate. To seize a sliver of opportunity, they killed gods who stood in their way and slaughtered Buddhas who blocked their path; otherwise, they casually killed people for treasure or killed monsters to level up, while every kind of beauty loved them and everyone competing with them for beauties was a thug or hooligan who died without a burial place. In short, nearly all mainstream cultivation novels today were a smoky, miasmic mess, nearly all worshipping strength alone. I particularly admired the works of Xiao Qian and Little Duan Tan Hua. Personally, I felt that they were cultivation novels' self-redemption. Xiao Qian's was the earliest cultivation novel I encountered in 2015, and it astonished me beyond words; Path to the Sky, Instant Kill, and Overlord Thunder God were immediately added to my reading list. As for reading Little Duan Tan Hua's "Exiled Immortal," that was an inexplicable twist of fate—from abandoning it in its second volume, to returning to it, to now following updates of "Earth's Sole Cultivator," Tan Hua's novels were the ones I had reviewed at greatest length. Beyond my personal fondness, Xiao Qian and Little Duan Tan Hua also shared an inner consistency: neither wrote mainstream cultivation novels. Their protagonists did not follow the formula of casually killing people for treasure and killing monsters to level up. Compared with other cultivation novels, their protagonists possessed an added warmth of human feeling, and their styles leaned more toward positive energy. Of course, they also differed. In terms of prose style, Xiao Qian made lifting heavy things seem light; Little Duan Tan Hua made lifting light things seem heavy. With Xiao Qian's relaxed, cloud-light touch, one thrilling adventure after another unfolded before your eyes; Little Duan Tan Hua, meanwhile, piled beds upon roofs, painted in rich ink, arranged his structure with rigor, and laid foreshadowing a thousand miles ahead. Tan Hua's novels had, among current cultivation novels, the most comprehensive cultivation system and the most immense content framework, leaning more toward vast cultivation epics. If Volume Four, "Immortal Realm," and Volume Five, "Primordial Divine Realm," could be completed more than a decade from now, Tan Hua might complete a Tan Hua system unprecedented before him and perhaps never equaled after him. If Xiao Qian was the founding patriarch of cultivation novels, possessing the bearing of a grand master, then Little Duan Tan Hua's "Exiled Immortal" might be the pinnacle of cultivation novel history—it had no formula and no established model. In heaven and on earth, it stood alone, refreshing the eyes and ears. That netizen's saying, "Once you enter Exiled Immortal, the sea is deep; from then on, no immortal-heroic novels are worth reading," was indeed no empty boast!

I. The Artistic Characteristics of Xiao Qian's and Little Duan Tan Hua's Novels

1. The Narrative Mainlines of Xiao Qian and Little Duan Tan Hua: The Beauty of Singularity and the Breadth of Complexity

Xiao Qian's "Journey to the West" was hailed as the founding work of cultivation novels. Examining Xiao Qian's writing style, the four words "making heavy things seem light" were enough to define it. Xiao Qian's prose was not ornate; amid its simplicity and naturalness lay another kind of beauty—concise and fluid. The narrative mainline of Xiao Qian's stories was extremely singular, and the plots relatively compact. This especially displayed Xiao Qian's bearing as a grand master, for his grasp of story pacing was exceptionally precise. As the novel shifted step by step and scene by scene, what needed detail received detail, what needed brevity remained brief, and there was never any dragging mud and water. Compared with Xiao Qian, Tan Hua's prose was far more ornate, carrying a demonic air of piled beds and stacked roofs. Moreover, Tan Hua's novels were rigorously arranged, vast in structure, complicated in their cultivation systems, and excessive in their narrative mainlines, so the writing inevitably became sluggish and lengthy. Seven years and sixteen million characters were proof enough!

2. The Inner Meaning of Xiao Qian's and Little Duan Tan Hua's Novels: Plain Emotions Flowing Delicately and Profound, Weighty Humanistic Concern

In Xiao Qian's "Journey to the West," "Instant Kill," "Legend of the Transcendent," and "Overlord Thunder God," every protagonist was deeply human, each carrying the beauty of simple, kind human nature. Li Qiang loved making friends and could blend in anywhere; Guo Shi'er and Mi Xiaojing cared deeply about family, friends, and their sects, and their paths of growth often involved hauling along whole households. In cultivation novels where "killing people for treasure and killing monsters to level up" was the mainstream, this was almost unimaginable. It might also be what many young readers criticized. In their eyes, cultivation meant defying heaven and changing one's fate, fighting for a sliver of opportunity, and for that sliver, killing gods who blocked the way and annihilating Buddhas who stood in the path. Yet the very things others criticized Xiao Qian for were what I valued most. Personally, I felt that this was a writer's bottom line. Only by maintaining such a bottom line, such a sense of mission, and such a writer's conscience could both writer and work possess depth.

The same could be seen in Little Duan Tan Hua's "Exiled Immortal." Influenced by the wary consciousness of the Book of Changes, Tan Hua also passed this reverence for heaven and fear of earth on to the protagonist Xiao Hua of "Exiled Immortal." In short, the "plain emotions flowing delicately and profound, weighty humanistic concern" in Xiao Qian's and Little Duan Tan Hua's works were the salvation of cultivation novels. For in Xiao Qian's and Tan Hua's works, they established a rule—a rule that stood far above any individual, rather than merely treating strength as supreme.

3. The Beauty of Philosophical Reflection in Xiao Qian's Novels and Tan Hua's Foreshadowing Across a Thousand Miles

Whether "Journey to the West," "Path to the Sky," "Instant Kill," or "Overlord Thunder God," Xiao Qian's novels all had astonishing endings. If I gave those four novels ninety points, I would give their endings alone one hundred. That was because Xiao Qian's novels held an ultimate concern for humanity. Unlike other cultivation novels, where the protagonist cultivated to the end and became the greatest being in heaven and earth, transcending heaven and earth and standing above all laws, every one of Xiao Qian's novels contained humanity's ultimate contemplation. All of them asked: what, exactly, was the ultimate purpose of cultivation? As Xiao Qian's earliest novels, "Journey to the West" and "Path to the Sky" revealed his philosophical thought through their titles alone—heavenly dao was boundless, human power limited. Even if one cultivated to the utmost extreme, like Azure Emperor and Li Qiang in "Journey to the West," possessing limitless lifespans, beneath the endless starry sky they still remained bewildered about the road ahead. They did not even know whether, after surviving the divine tribulation, they had become gods. Journey to the West truly was a journey into the misty unknown.

Path to the Sky likewise lived up to its title. The purpose of cultivation had originally been to transcend life and death and attain eternal youth, yet in Path to the Sky, after cultivating to the utmost extreme, worlds merged with worlds, but the self was lost. Lei Xingfeng of "Overlord Thunder God" cultivated to the ultimate realm, destroyed countless universes, and transformed his body into an entire world, yet he could never return to his homeland. The woman who shared his affliction began another bond with him. Perhaps all cultivation was nothing more than flowers in a mirror and the moon in water. Before the endless universes of heavenly dao, even humanity's unbroken continuation could not escape the charm of man and woman bestowed by nature!

Little Duan Tan Hua, born a science student, reflected his rigorous personality in his novels—put it this way: no cultivation novel had ever contained more foreshadowing, more pits, or more rigorous planning than "Exiled Immortal." To borrow Fellow Daoist Xuan Qing's words, it "seemed like a celestial maiden weaving brocade, like heavenly generals laying out an array, presenting one colorful, clearly ordered plot and world after another." Almost no reader could guess the endings of its characters or the twists of its various plotlines. "Exiled Immortal" consisted of five volumes. Volume One, "Exiled Immortal," was the prequel, telling how the protagonist Xiao Hua searched for proof of becoming a god in the Ruins of Shenzhou during the era when the Dharma was waning.

"Light Escape" told the protagonist's story in the Cultivation World and was divided into two volumes. In one volume, the protagonist cultivated on Xiaoyu Continent to the early Golden Core stage. Because he had previously crossed realms with his Demigod Body in order to better survive lightning tribulations, he was pursued by the disciples of the sealed person—namely, two Nascent Soul Cultivators. After his master and beloved self-destructed and perished, he passed through the Sumeru Buddhist Array beneath the sea, the Five Elements Annihilation Grand Array, and the Song of Years Demonic Array, arriving in another realm. Thus began True Person Xiao's adventures in the Four Great Continents, which were also True Person Xiao's most brilliant stories in the Cultivation World. Little Duan Tan Hua spent seven years writing these three volumes, totaling sixteen million characters. Volume Four, "Immortal Realm," and Volume Five, "Primordial Divine Realm," would likely only be completed more than a decade later, when they could finally fill the pit left by the "Outsider from Beyond the Heavens" in Volume One.

Let me say a little about Little Duan Tan Hua's endings. Whether it was the extra chapter of Volume One, Light Escape: Xiaoyu Continent, or Light Escape: Four Great Continents, every installment had a classic ending worthy of serving as a literary benchmark. The end of the love story in Volume One and the origins of the Outsider from Beyond the Heavens created a great pit that would take more than a decade to fill. Then, in Volume Two, just as your tears flowed in ripples over the self-destruction and deaths of Xiao Hua's master and beloved, the three grand arrays and innate divine restriction by which the Immortal Realm sealed Xiaoyu Continent waved to you from afar as pits that could only be filled in Volume Three. In short, Little Duan Tan Hua's novels possessed immense frameworks, rigorous planning, and sprawling cultivation systems. True Person Xiao's adventures in the Cultivation World were truly magnificent and surging! The author also skillfully employed "cross-cut montage" and "parallel montage," unfolding multiple narrative mainlines and vividly presenting the kind of "last-minute rescue" seen only in American blockbusters. This was the unique Tan Hua, the eye-opening "Exiled Immortal"!

II. The Shortcomings of Xiao Qian's and Little Duan Tan Hua's Novels

1. The Shortcomings of Xiao Qian's Novels

"Journey to the West" and "Path to the Sky" were pillar works of cultivation novels. On the strength of those two novels alone, Xiao Qian could occupy a highly important place in cultivation novel history. But Xiao Qian's later novels, such as "Instant Kill" and "Overlord Thunder God," contained more commercial considerations. Xiao Qian also had a novel called "Super Evolution," but it was not my preferred type, so I had not read it and was not qualified to comment. Thus, by borrowing the forms of popular webnovels, Xiao Qian's fiction inevitably acquired a certain degree of formula. For example, in all of Xiao Qian's novels, the protagonist generally dragged along a household. Guo Shi'er had his Lineage, Lei Xingfeng had the sect in his small world, and Mi Xiaojing in the new novel "Legend of the Transcendent" was also dragging along a large group of people. Moreover, ever since "Instant Kill," Xiao Qian's protagonists' cultivation model could become an entirely different book simply by changing the cultivation method, the places of training, and the adventure experiences.

Of course, I still greatly admired Xiao Qian's imagination. Whether Guo Shi'er traveled through different small worlds, raced from small worlds toward great worlds, or Lei Xingfeng embarked on adventures one solid step at a time, their completeness and smoothness always let you find the thrill and pleasure of reading within them, and find something different from Xiao Qian's previous book. Of course, after countless followers and imitators, the formulaization of cultivation novels was something no one could avoid. To borrow the words of Ecclesiastes in the Bible: "What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again." There was nothing new under the sun.

2. The Shortcomings of Little Duan Tan Hua's Novels

I had said more than once what Little Duan Tan Hua's novels lacked: too many idle strokes, poor control of pacing, and poor handling of where to be concise and where to elaborate. This resulted in slow pacing and drawn-out plots, with sheer volume wearing away readers' patience. These were old matters repeated endlessly, so I would not belabor them. Below, I would discuss Xiao Hua of "Exiled Immortal" through the person of Li Qiang in Xiao Qian's "Journey to the West." Of course, this was a matter of personal bias; with one pot of soup, it was hard to satisfy every mouth.

Compared with the protagonists and supporting characters in Xiao Qian's novels and those in Tan Hua's novels—both writers portrayed supporting characters very successfully—I preferred Li Qiang, Azure Emperor, Venerable Bogu, Tian Zhen, and the others under Xiao Qian's pen. In Xiao Qian's writing, they belonged to the same level. There was communication between them, tacit understanding, sordidness, and scheming, yet watching them interact, whether amid the endless starry sky of Journey to the West or the interstellar adventures of Path to the Sky, I could always gain from them a sense of life's reality and emotion. Compared with Li Qiang, perhaps because Xiao Hua was meant to cultivate into a Primeval God under Tan Hua's pen, the figures around Xiao Hua were almost all merely his foils. True Person Xiao stood high above, forever alone. In Xiao Hua, I could not feel the joy of companionship that Li Qiang possessed.

In short, regarding novel planning, digging and filling pits, and all kinds of complex cultivation systems, Xiao Qian was far from comparable to Tan Hua. But when it came to ultimate contemplation and ultimate questioning about humanity, as well as humanity's own circumstances and destination, Tan Hua was absolutely inferior to Xiao Qian. In my view, Xiao Qian's endings displayed the true bearing of a grand master, a philosophical reflection that might perhaps keep the cultivation novels we were obsessed with from becoming spiritual opium!