修仙

xiūxiān
verb

Meanings

  1. 1 to cultivate immortality (fantasy novel genre)
  2. 2 (slang) to stay up all night

Examples

Tā zuìjìn zài zhuī yī bù xiūxiān xiǎoshuō.
He's been following a xiuxian novel lately.
Yòu xiūxiān dào sān diǎn, jīntiān kěndìng qǐ bù lái.
Stayed up 'cultivating' until 3 a.m. again — no way I'm getting up today.

Tips

culture
Rooted in Daoist practice of refining qi to become a (immortal). As a web-novel genre it covers the 仙侠/玄幻/ cluster, with protagonists climbing cultivation realms (…). 凡人修仙 is the seminal modern xiuxian work.
register
The 'pulling an all-nighter' sense is a joke: staying up past 3 a.m. makes you a cultivator 'transcending mortal sleep'.

Stroke Order

xiū
xiān