(Featuring a female protagonist, the Daoist Eight Great Incantations, the Eight Hidden Arts, the Eight Treasures Handed Down to the World, the Thunder Arts of the Divine Empyrean and Qingwei schools, and ritual ceremonies)
Lin Yinzhi is the last disciple of the Louguan branch of the Zhongnan Mountain Daoist tradition. With all five meridians crippled, he cannot cultivate, so his master keeps him in the scripture library, where he spends ten years drying books in the sun.
One night, his master casts a divination and never wakes again. In a secret chamber, he leaves behind a scroll titled The Complete Essentials of the Dao Pivot. On its final page are eight words: “The Dao Pivot may yet save me.”
Lin Yinzhi has no idea where the Dao Pivot is. He only knows he must keep moving forward.
He travels to Maoshan, Longhu, Tiantai, Wuyi, Wudang, and Xishan. At every stop, he encounters a strange tale: a female Daoist who has fallen victim to cultivation deviation; an heir of the Celestial Masters with the aura of a painted-skin ghost hidden inside her; a remnant soul trapped in the belly of a counter-thunderstorm for decades, still asking, “Has it started raining?”; and a flood dragon suppressed by Xu Xun a thousand years ago, whose grievance no one ever knew. Spirits and monsters step out of ancient works like The Classic of Mountains and Seas, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio, and Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang. Each has its own wish, and its own place to return to.
All these strange tales point to the same old story: a thousand years ago, someone stole The Illustrated Compendium of Strange Beasts by Baize. He searched the entire book. It contained the true names of every demon, but not a single name of the living. He could not find the name he sought.
He has waited a thousand years.
Whenever Lin Yinzhi reaches a new place, a fragment of the Dao Pivot appears on its own. He never actively searches for it; he simply travels, and then encounters it. But when he finally stands in the sixth-level ghost palace on Mount Luofeng with all seven fragments in hand, facing the scripture thief who has waited a thousand years, he suddenly realizes something.
He was never the one searching for the Dao Pivot.
The Dao Pivot was waiting for him. It had been waiting a long time.
(Mystical arts reach the profound; only those who follow the Dao will prosper.)
