I Have a Dog

[A little promo for my upcoming stories, Escape from White Dragon Horse and The Human-Raising Temple. Check out their blurbs on my profile, and if you're interested, please add them to your collection. Thanks a bunch!]

[If you enjoy cultivation stories like this, check out A Path to Immortality Through the Dao on my profile. The blurb for The Long Companionship Tale is up for now, too. If you're interested, please add them to your collection. "Bows"]

A million-word epic / (possibly) dark cultivation

The world is made of flesh and blood, and immortals and mortals are worlds apart. If you are weak, you are at others' mercy; if you are strong, you devour them. A thousand years ago, corpse hunters roamed freely, and corpse cultivators stood proudly above the countless immortal sects. Now they have all been laid to rest, and no one remembers their former glory!

If she wants to live, she must swallow this eyeball.

If she wants to ascend to the heavens beyond the void and glimpse the truth of the flesh-soil, she must offer up her body as a sacrifice and swim through a sea of blood.

She must use her own eyes to witness the hatred this great Dao has borne for millions of years. Only by remembering this boundless hatred can she break through the heavens and look back upon all living things.

The hatred of all living things stretches back through the ages.

[The lighthearted version:]

Qi An transmigrated, but unfortunately, she neither became the child prodigy she had hoped to be and rose to success, nor used her knowledge to make a fortune. In the end, everyone relied on either talent or family connections. Some even had both. By comparison, she was just an ordinary support cultivator, unarmed and in need of protection whenever a fight broke out.

When she realized she was a bit player in other people's cultivation journeys, an ant in the eyes of the powerful, and even a potential sacrifice to be abducted and refined by evil cultivators if she was unlucky, Qi An finally took a hard look at herself. Giving up her old dream of being a carefree slacker, she decided to build a cultivation business from the ground up!

But as the saying goes, starting a business is risky. One bad deal, and you can lose everything, down to your last pair of pants. Worse, you might even lose your life and die with regrets!

To avoid such a tragic end to her business venture, Qi An decided it would be best to find people to join her and cultivate together.

She searched high and low, and to her surprise, she really did find a business partner... Oh, no, wait. More like a dog who would start a business with her.

“Qi An, do you know that a support cultivator needs to find a Dao companion suited to supporting them?”

“I have a dog.”

“Qi An, you're going to offend a lot of fellow cultivators if you keep this up.”

“I have a dog.”

“Qi An, this is going to make things very difficult. No cultivator will want to partner with you.”

“Damn it!! I told you, I have a dog!!”

As the saying goes, I fear ghosts, but they've never hurt me. I don't fear people, yet they've left me battered and bruised. Qi An says this vast cultivation world is so cold, and people are impossible to figure out. What could be more comforting than a dog?!

Why look for a Dao companion? She has a dog.

Her cultivation startup was about to launch, and Qi An had successfully recruited three employees.

Employee No. 1: A younger dog demon who ran away from home after a family dispute

Though he's a dog, he's no heel. Young and incredibly strong, he lives by the principle that only the toughest dog becomes the top dog. After Qi An rescues him, he agrees to follow his boss and build a business with her, aspiring to be the foundation of her enterprise, the watchdog at her door, and the very model of loyalty!

He swears to clear every obstacle from his boss's path and become her best business partner!

Employee No. 2: A hard-luck, middle-aged lizard with a short fuse and crushing debts

Though he's a lizard, he's already taken two hard falls on the road to entrepreneurship! He's not old, but he's deeply in debt. Luckily, Qi An happens to save him, sparing him the fate of being eaten to pay off what he owes.

The lizard looks up at his boss, then flourishes his pen across the employee contract, writing: “The direction my boss points is the direction I strive toward!”

Employee No. 3: A tiny centipede on a temporary contract

Though she's a temporary employee, she was the boss's very first treasure. This little centipede was the foundation on which the business was built.

Qi An scoops up the centipede, never expecting that one day it would speak and transform, startling her half to death.

The little centipede wiggles its feelers and says with a grin, “I'll introduce you to my boss, okay...?”

A theatrical, money-loving heroine who pretends to be easygoing but is actually ruthless * A big white dog, a descendant of the Northern Wastes, the male lead who pretends to be a wolf but is really a dog

(Note: This is my first book, and it has been serializing for a long time, so the reading experience in the early chapters has some issues. I'm slowly revising them starting today. "Bows!" Note added 24.4.21)

Please note:

1. The male lead is a dog!

The male lead is a dog!

The male lead is a dog! (It's necessary for the plot, and he will change later, but at the beginning the male lead really is a dog!)

This is also an ensemble story. The male lead is set, but for much of the story he and the heroine don't have much of a romantic relationship. The plot takes up eighty percent, romance twenty percent. The heroine meets many people and forms all kinds of tangled bonds with them. The story focuses on her perspective.

2. Plot-focused, with the heroine's growth at its heart. (*This is not a wish-fulfillment story about a genius, not a wish-fulfillment story about a genius, not a wish-fulfillment story about a genius. She builds a business one step at a time through hard work. Please read this carefully!!) Starting a business is hard. She's weak and frustrated early on, and the road to immortality is long. There are many original worldbuilding details. Happy ending. A long story, with daily updates whenever possible. If I miss an update, chances are something came up and I couldn't make time.

3. The heroine really is weak at the beginning, and starting her business really is difficult. She's fairly passive, both emotionally and in terms of cultivation. She isn't someone who starts out strong and resilient. She'll grow gradually later on, and she's a very, very ordinary cultivator. (This is important. If you don't like her at first, you can click the X in the top-left corner or criticize me, but don't criticize her. "Tears")

4. There are disgusting and frightening descriptions. Most of the immortals and cultivators in this story are no paragons of virtue, and many will do anything to advance their cultivation. The villains are all gathered in one place.

5. This is a dog-eat-dog world where everyone has a hundred tricks up their sleeve, and each person has their own moral code. (Don't judge them by ordinary standards! They've lived for a very long time, and most can't be judged or restrained by mortal values! These old monsters don't care what you think!)

6. The values in the story do not represent the author's values. The values in the story do not represent the author's values. The values in the story do not represent the author's values.

7. Cultivators' realms are Qi Refining, Foundation Establishment, Golden Core, Nascent Soul, Spirit Transformation, and Void Refinement. (Each major realm has five minor stages, such as Golden Core Stage One, Golden Core Stage Two, and so on.)

Theme: Life is about the choices you make