Author: Tian Tao; written on March 4, 2006
Like most readers of Immortal Road, I was drawn at first sight to its tranquil prose. The story began with a conversation between Zhang Xingyan and the old Daoist Qinghe, and amid their wit and humor, it carried me into a fantasy of immortal grace and Daoist dreams.
What truly drew me to Immortal Road was its ordinariness.
Xing Yan was an ordinary boy, bustling about, doing ordinary things, his feelings slipping beyond his control and drifting downstream with the current.
Having read this far in Immortal Road, I could hardly point to any gripping plot. In the first two volumes, the author's leisurely, contented prose provoked dissatisfaction among many readers. I thought, That's it. This book looks in danger of flopping.
Later, though, I discovered I was wrong.
I. Extraordinary encounters
Were there extraordinary encounters in Immortal Road?
Of course there were.
Yet Uncle Guan handled them with just the right touch. Everything unfolded like drifting clouds and flowing water, offering no fierce but fleeting thrill. But when you came to your senses and gazed back toward where you had begun, Xing Yan was already no longer the Xing Yan he had once been.
Sometimes I was genuinely astonished. When had he become so formidable? Yet after carefully rereading the earlier chapters, everything seemed only natural. Xing Yan's extraordinariness had been destined from the very first moment of his ordinary life.
I still remembered that night of clear wind and bright moon. Gazing into the Starry Firmament, the boy's heart was as pure as water. Only in such surroundings would the essence of heaven and earth be drawn to him.
For a time, the jade flute Divine Snow, which the Dragon King had given Xing Yan, was actually used as a