Diary of a Scripture-Seeking Guardian

The day I passed the civil service exam, I thought my life would never be the same again. Later, I learned it was only the beginning.

Liu Ye is a ninth-rank minor immortal from Mount Luojia, with no powerful connections and no one to back him. All he has is a bronze token and a gray Daoist robe. One position was available for every three thousand applicants, and he got it. But he soon discovered that those with connections could enter Chaoyin Cave without registering, get bailed out whenever they got into trouble, and even join the pilgrimage team after being banished to the mortal realm. Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing, and the White Dragon Horse: every one of them had powerful backing. Only he had none.

Guanyin chose him to protect the pilgrimage not because she valued him, but because nobody else wanted the miserable job. The previous nine guardians had all died. He was the tenth.

Fourteen years, eighty-one trials. In his secret reports, he recorded every scheme, every compromise, every time he’d looked out for himself. He helped a frog spirit pass the civil service exam, then stayed silent when the truth came out. He rose from ninth rank to eighth, bought a mountain of his own, and turned down a transfer to a fifth-rank post. He had won, but he no longer knew who he was.

“Be upright, and keep your heart sincere.” He still remembered his father’s words. But dressed in fine silk robes and living in a private courtyard, he asked himself: Had he won, or had he lost?

The moon gave no answer. The mountain wind howled, sounding like it was crying, or perhaps laughing.