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Confucian scholars dismissed it as fantasy. The great historian Sima Qian refused to even discuss it. Dynasty after dynasty, serious-minded intellectuals tried to push the Shan Hai Jing to the margins. And yet it survived. For over two thousand years, through book burnings and regime changes and the rise and fall of empires, this strange, unauthorized text was copied, recopied, illustrated, commented upon and preserved. Something about it refused to die. The Daoists found a spirit map in it. The alchemists found mineral formulas. The poets found images they could not stop dreaming about. And today it fuels an entire genre of xianxia fantasy consumed by millions worldwide.