A Will Eternal Review: Er Gen's Funniest Xianxia Novel

Yes, this A Will Eternal review says it's worth your time, with one condition: you have to find a coward funny. Er Gen's Bai Xiaochun chases immortality because he's scared stiff of dying, and the book never stops milking that. It's finished, it's fully translated, and the first chapter is a near-perfect test of whether you'll enjoy the rest.

Image: Wuxiaworld cover for A Will Eternal, translated by Jeremy "Deathblade" Bai

A Will Eternal Review: Chapter 1 as a Taste Test

We read chapter 1, "I'm Bai Xiaochun", on Wuxiaworld on October 17, 2026.

It opens with a farewell. A village gathers at the gate at dawn to see off a thin boy of fifteen or sixteen who's leaving to learn immortal cultivation. Everyone looks sad. The village elder tells him he's been "such a good kid!!" The moment he's out of sight, the old man weeps for joy: "Justice from the heavens! The weasel... is finally gone!" Somebody gets out gongs and drums. Somebody else mourns the chickens, because Bai Xiaochun hated roosters crowing at dawn and got every kid in the village to eat them.

He hears all of it, clears his throat and keeps walking.

On the mountain, a rustle in the bushes sends him scrambling: he pulls "four axes and six machetes" out of his pack and drops them all over the path as he runs. At the top he lights his family's black incense, which summons lightning every time. He's lit it twelve times in three years and spat on it every time to put it out. When the immortal finally lands, exhausted from three years of false alarms, Bai Xiaochun first claims he couldn't bear to leave his beloved villagers. The immortal checks the village with his divine sense, hears the drums, and demands the truth. The answer is the whole novel in one line: "'Cuz I'm scared of dying!"

Screenshot: Wuxiaworld, A Will Eternal chapter 1, October 17, 2026

That scene is the real A Will Eternal review in miniature. If you laughed, keep going. If you found him grating, the next thousand chapters won't fix it.

What Readers Say About A Will Eternal

Wuxiaworld readers back the comedy. Modsan, whose review sits just under the top one, wrote that "His fear of death and pain grounds him to reality and relatability," and called it "a great comic novel" with "surprisingly tense and serious moments". Master_Ryu's review opens with "This novel will CRACK YOU UP!!!", and DuskMaiden's top review sums it up as "COMEDY+CULTIVATION+TRAGEDY". Modsan also notes that Er Gen "has a habit of pushing minor characters back into the spotlight for a while especially in the latter half".

Screenshot: Wuxiaworld reader reviews for A Will Eternal, October 12, 2026

Wuxiaworld itself frames it as "the fourth major xianxia novel by the renowned Er Gen", and one that "is much more comedic and light-hearted than Er Gen's previous works, although it has its fair share of action and drama." The translator, Deathblade, recorded his own introduction, which Wuxiaworld links from the synopsis:

A Will Eternal Review: What It Costs You

Time. Er Gen serialized it as 一念永恒 on Qidian for almost two years: chapter 1 went up on April 28, 2016 and chapter 1314, 你的选择（终） ("Your Choice (End)"), on February 9, 2018. That's about 3.7 million Chinese characters. Wuxiaworld's list runs a little longer because it adds an Epilogue, a four-part side story about the Blood Ancestor and a glossary.

Screenshot: Wuxiaworld series page for A Will Eternal, October 12, 2026

The ending. Not everyone sticks the landing. In r/noveltranslations' thread on the ending, u/Hour_Ant323 wrote that it "was one of my favorites but as soon as they all got to the higher realm I dropped it there, it was feeling rushed." Our ending explainer covers what that final stretch does.

The shared universe. Wuxiaworld says "Those connections only pertain to a handful of chapters, so you can read the novel as a whole and enjoy it without first reading ISSTH", then adds that "the best reading experience would begin with the later portions of ISSTH." You don't need homework, but Er Gen fans get extra payoff. If you want that payoff, our I Shall Seal the Heavens review covers how that book opens.

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Our Take

Worth it, and it's the long xianxia we'd hand to anyone who's bounced off grim protagonists. The fear-of-death gag isn't a quirk stapled to a normal cultivation story; it's why he lights the incense, why he lies to the immortal and why he grabs the immortal's leg when they take off. A book built that tightly around one joke can wear thin, and the late arc is where at least one Reddit reader says it did. Read chapter 1 free. If you're still grinning at the end of it, settle in. If you'd rather have Er Gen's tragic side, our Renegade Immortal review covers his first hit.

How We Checked This

We read chapter 1 on Wuxiaworld on October 17, 2026 and re-opened the series page that day (status, score, chapter list, reviews). On October 19 we opened the novel's Qidian page for the serialization dates. We also used the Wuxiaworld pages for I Shall Seal the Heavens and Renegade Immortal, Deathblade's YouTube introduction and the r/noveltranslations thread on the ending. On October 20 we re-opened the series page, the Renegade Immortal page and the video: the score, the review count and the likes on the top three reviews hadn't moved. The 8.7/10 is our editorial rating.

Related Reading

• A Will Eternal Reading Guide
• A Will Eternal Ending Explained
• A Will Eternal Donghua vs Novel
• I Shall Seal the Heavens Review
• Renegade Immortal Review
• Best Completed Xianxia Novels in 2026

References

• Wuxiaworld: A Will Eternal
• Wuxiaworld: A Will Eternal, Chapter 1
• Wuxiaworld: I Shall Seal the Heavens
• Wuxiaworld: Renegade Immortal
• Qidian: 一念永恒 (A Will Eternal), book page and chapter list
• YouTube: What is A Will Eternal? (Deathblade)
• r/noveltranslations: Making sense of A Will Eternal's ending