The Cultivation World Is All Fake, and I’m the Only Honest One

“For the poor, the road to cultivation means every step sinks into the mud.”

No heaven-defying techniques, no peerless spiritual root, no old man in a ring. The protagonist, Gu Buyan, is at the ninth layer of Qi Refining. His face is fake, his heart has a hole in it, and his sword is broken. His one and only skill is telling the truth. In a world where everyone fakes everything, telling the truth is more dangerous than killing someone.

The author writes poverty right down to the bone. It takes three days to eat a packet of five-spice dried tofu. To cross a river, he has to lash together a raft by hand. In a fight, all he has are bricks and a kitchen knife. Yet every chapter’s hardship hides a spark of life: the poorer he gets, the more fiercely he clings to life. Zhou Qingping’s line, “Eat the fish first,” is more heartbreaking than any grand cultivation scripture.