Before becoming a literary icon, Ding Lingtao worked a standard corporate job for a company in his hometown of Xuzhou. In February 2008, while transitioning out of his job and preparing for his postgraduate entrance exams, he began drafting A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality.The book took almost ten years to completely finish writing. As the novel grew into an unprecedented commercial and cultural success on Qidian, he officially resigned from his regular day job to commit to writing full-time.
