Five Chinese Web Novelists Who Shaped a Global Genre

At a May event hosted by the China Writers Association at the Beijing International Bookstore, 11 representative figures of Chinese history, fantasy, and web novels gathered to discuss taking Chinese stories overseas. The gathering coincided with the release of the 2025 China Online Literature Blue Book, which reported more than 33 million online literary works and over 520 million readers in China. Web novels are now considered one of the country's three biggest cultural exports, alongside online games and web series.

Ma Boyong, a best-selling novelist with 8 million followers on Weibo, first gained attention with an online suspense story in 2000. His work spans historical fiction and fantasy, often focusing on ordinary people caught in historical currents. Titles such as The Longest Day in Chang'an and The Lychees of Chang'an have been adapted for film and television. His satirical retelling of Journey to the West, The Annoyance of the Gods, resonates with readers familiar with corporate bureaucracy. Ma's works remain largely unavailable in English, with only a few short stories translated.

Er Gen, the pen name of former elementary school English teacher Liu Yong, began writing on Qidian in 2009. His second novel, Renegade Immortal, ran for 2,088 chapters and accumulated more than 800 million views, establishing him as a leading figure in the xiuxian cultivation sub-genre. He has completed seven lengthy works building a shared fantasy universe. I Shall Seal the Heavens introduced black humor to the genre, while A World Worth Protecting blended science fiction with cultivation. His novels are available on WebNovel in English, French, Spanish, Indonesian, and other languages.

Zhu Zhihong, writing as I Eat Tomatoes, dropped out of Suzhou University after writing 6 million words and amassing 40,000 subscribers on Qidian. His novel Coiling Dragon, following a young noble who discovers a mysterious ring, was first translated into English by a fan on Wuxiaworld in 2014 and reportedly helped an American reader quit drug use. Game adaptation rights for Coiling Dragon sold for more than 3 million yuan in 2009, a record at the time. His works have since been adapted into games, a TV series, and the anime The Demon Hunter, and translated into English, French, Russian, and Vietnamese.

Yuan Ye, known as Cuttlefish That Loves Diving, worked as a book editor for six years before writing full-time. His novel Lord of the Mysteries, inspired by H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos and set in an alternate Victorian era, drew on extensive research into Victorian society and scientific developments. The 4.4-million-character work was added to the British Library's collection in 2024. A sequel, Lord of Mysteries 2: Circle of Inevitability, ran from 2023 to 2025. His works have been translated into English, French, Thai, and other languages.

Ren He, writing as Talking Elbow, has published eight major hits since his 2016 debut. Spare Me, Great Lord! won readers with imaginative world-building and witty humor set in a modern supernatural world. His latest serialized novel, Green Mountain, explores the concept of xia, or heroic righteousness, through a time-traveling protagonist caught between the imperial court and the martial arts underworld. Ren said at the May event that the spirit of xia is a defining element of Chinese fantasy stories he hopes to share.