Sword Xia of the Shu Mountains

Sword Xia of the Shu Mountains《蜀山劍俠傳》by Huanzhu Louzhu 還珠樓主 (lit. Master of Returning Pearl Loft) was published between 1932 and 1948 and is one of the most influential wuxia novels of all time. Many of the elements in this novel became standard tropes of the wuxia genre. It is also the forefather of the modern xianxia cultivation novel. Huanzhu’s cultivation system became the standard, fusing the Daoist quest for transcendence with the Buddhist reincarnation cycle and tribulation system, as well as the Confucian virtue of humaneness 仁 and the chivalrous xia 俠 archetype. At over 4.1 million Chinese characters, it is also one of the longest wuxia novels, though it remains unfinished due to th...