This is the last genre guide from Lucas, Wuxiaworld's Chinese licensing manager! This series is his overview of China's webnovel genres, written using his experience from having worked at one of the top publishers for many years.

Previous posts:

• An overview of China's webnovel author rankings
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Xuanhuan
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Fantasy (Qihuan)
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Xianxia
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Urban
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Historical
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Scifi
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Games
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Military & Sports

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Hi everyone, this is Lucas.

This is the final installment of the series — today we'll cover the three remaining genres in one piece: wuxia, suspense & paranormal, and realist fiction. These three genres are relatively niche, but each has its own character.

Part One: Wuxia (武侠)

Wuxia novels are set in ancient Chinese society or fictional worlds with a similar backdrop, taking the "jianghu" (江湖) as the field of action, martial arts as the core element, and revolving around the grievances, romances, and moral choices of itinerant heroes. Generally, the power system in wuxia does not exceed the scope of the "human". This is the most fundamental distinction between wuxia and the Xuanhuan (玄幻) and Xianxia (仙侠) genres.

From the 1950s to the 1980s, Hong Kong and Taiwan wuxia novels entered their golden age. Masters such as Jin Yong, Gu Long, Liang Yusheng, and Huang Yi (金庸、古龙、梁羽生、黄易) emerged one after another, and their works swept across the Chinese-speaking world, shaping several generations of readers' entire imagination of what a "xia" (侠, chivalrous hero) ought to be.

Around the year 2000, Chinese online fiction took off. Most early web novelists had grown up reading Hong Kong and Taiwan wuxia, and their writing was inevitably deeply shaped by these classics. It can be said that wuxia is one of the most important sources of Chinese online fiction, and a fair number of wuxia-themed works appeared in the early days of web novels.

However, as xuanhuan, xianxia, and other genres rose, wuxia online fiction gradually declined. First, the wuxia worldview is relatively fixed, and with the great masters' masterworks already standing before them, new authors find it hard to innovate. Second, the wuxia power system has a ceiling, which puts a relatively low cap on the breadth of the story and the intensity of its payoff moments.

Wuxia web novels can be divided into two types: original wuxia and wuxia fanfiction (wuxia tongren, 武侠同人).

I. Original Wuxia (原创武侠)

In works of original wuxia, the worldview, characters, sects, and martial arts are all set by the author from scratch. This is a concept defined in contrast to "fanfiction".

On Qidian (起点中文网), the best-performing work in the wuxia category in history is I Eat Tomatoes (我吃西红柿)'s The Nine Cauldrons (九鼎记). The book is set in a fictional era of nine warring kingdoms, and the protagonist Teng Qingshan starts as a mortal martial artist, eventually becoming a top-tier master. It should be noted that this work's power system is relatively high, making it closer to xuanhuan than to traditional wuxia.

The most widely known wuxia work of recent years is the Taiwanese author San Xian (三弦)'s Under the Heavens (天之下). This work is grand in scope and populated by a large cast, constructing a fictional jianghu set in an alternate late-Qing / early-Republic era — nine major sects standing apart, with the wulin (武林) and the imperial court interwoven. It enjoys an extremely high reputation among wuxia fans.

Another work worth mentioning is Ask Not About Jianghu (莫问江湖)'s A Pawn's Passage (过河卒). The novel tells the story of Qi Xuansu, a lowborn Daoist, struggling to survive between jianghu and imperial court while gradually uncovering the mystery of his own origins.

II. Wuxia Fanfiction (武侠同人)

Wuxia fanfiction refers to web novels that perform secondary creation on the worldviews and characters of classic Hong Kong and Taiwan wuxia works. The greatest advantage of this type of work is that it "comes with a built-in reader base" — the worlds of Jin Yong and Gu Long are almost common knowledge to Chinese readers, so authors don't need to spend a lot of space setting up the background and can jump straight into the plot.

Well-known works include The Melon-Eating Swordsman in the World of Gu Long (古龙世界里的吃瓜剑客), in which the protagonist transmigrates into the worlds of Gu Long's novels and witnesses all kinds of famous scenes. There is also Flower Stealing Master (偷香高手), by Monk Of The Six Illusions (六如和尚), also the author of Keyboard Immortal (陆地键仙). The protagonist transmigrates into the body of "Song Qingshu" (宋青书) in Jin Yong's wuxia universe, and in a world that fuses Jin Yong's fourteen works he cultivates divine arts and amasses a vast harem.

Overall, the cooling of the wuxia genre is by now an undisputed fact. But its influence has not truly vanished — wuxia's elements, wuxia's settings, and wuxia's spirit still live on in many works.

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Part Two: Suspense & Paranormal (悬疑灵异)

Suspense and paranormal are, strictly speaking, two distinct genres. However, on Chinese online novel platforms, the two are typically merged into a single category called "suspense & paranormal" (悬疑灵异). A significant number of works also blend elements of both.

Let's begin with suspense. Suspense fiction has its roots in detective and mystery fiction — exemplified by the works of renowned authors such as Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Keigo Higashino. In Chinese web fiction, however, while suspense works retain the core of detective reasoning, they often incorporate substantial elements of thriller, horror, the grotesque, and the paranormal. Compared to the refined puzzle-solving of traditional detective fiction, Chinese web novel suspense places greater emphasis on atmosphere and visceral impact.

Now to the paranormal. This genre traces back to China's ancient zhiguai (志怪, strange tales) literature — Gan Bao's In Search of the Supernatural (搜神记), Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (聊斋志异), and Ji Xiaolan's Jottings from the Thatched Abode of Close Observations (阅微草堂笔记) being among the representative works, while folk ghost stories and local legends have provided an endless stream of source material. In the modern era, two early channels had an enormous influence on online paranormal literature: first, the late-1990s radio show "Zhang Zhen Tells a Story" (张震讲故事) and similar ghost-story broadcasts, and second, the "Lianpeng Ghost Tales" (莲蓬鬼话) board on the Tianya Forum (天涯论坛) in the 2000s. This board reached its peak around 2005–2010 and incubated a host of works that went on to massive influence, including Daomu Biji (盗墓笔记), Ghost Blows Out the Light (鬼吹灯), and Descendants of Maoshan (茅山后裔). It also produced the first generation of paranormal writers who were truly fluent in the language of online fiction.

Below, we'll cover the main subgenres of each.

I. Suspense (悬疑类)

Web novel suspense has essentially one main branch: detective fiction. These works center on solving cases; the protagonist is usually a police officer, forensic examiner, criminal investigation expert, or private detective, who cracks bizarre cases through evidence analysis and logical reasoning. Representative works include Ninth Daoist (道门老九)'s Netherworld Investigator (猎罪者) and Xin Bai (辛白)'s Genius Detective (追凶神探). The former blends traditional coroner's autopsy techniques with modern criminal investigation science, the protagonist cracking strange cases through ancient corpse-examination methods; the latter follows Song Lang, a legendary figure in police circles, who after his "rebirth" continues to pursue unsolved homicides under a hidden identity.

Also worth mentioning is Village Of Ambitious Birds (志鸟村)'s National Forensic Doctor (国民法医). In a sense, this work is a fusion of urban professional fiction with detective fiction — it has the meticulous depiction of forensic procedures, specialized knowledge, and daily life characteristic of professional fiction, combined with the tense, case-cracking pace of crime fiction.

II. Paranormal (灵异类)

The paranormal genre's subgenre structure is relatively complex. It can be roughly divided into the following subcategories.

1. Eerie Awakening (诡异复苏)

Eerie awakening is a paranormal subgenre derived from "spiritual energy revival" (灵气复苏). Its core premise: at some point in modern society, dormant eerie entities, evil gods, or supernatural forces suddenly awaken, and human society is forced to confront a new world filled with horror and the unknown. The representative work is Fo Qian Xian Hua (佛前献花)'s Mysterious Awakening (神秘复苏). Some works further blend in the "infinite flow" element of instance dungeons, having the protagonist shuttle between various eerie instances. Paperboy Young Master (卖报小郎君)'s Spirit Realm Walker (灵境行者) is a classic example — the protagonist enters various eerie spaces through a "Spirit Realm" system to carry out missions. Fanqie Novel (番茄小说) also hosts a large number of eerie awakening works.

2. Tomb Raiding (盗墓)

The earliest and most famous works of the tomb-raiding subgenre are Tianxia Bachang (天下霸唱)'s Ghost Blows Out the Light (鬼吹灯) and Nanpai Sanshu (南派三叔)'s Daomu Biji (盗墓笔记). Both originally serialized on Tianya's "Lianpeng Ghost Tales" board, both later exploded in popularity, and both spawned massive IP franchises across film, television, comics, and beyond. Virtually all subsequent tomb-raiding works are heavily influenced by these two — elements like the Mojin Xiaowei (摸金校尉, ancient tomb-raider guild), zongzi (粽子, animated corpses), traps and mechanical arrays, and fengshui techniques have all become standard fare in the subgenre. However, because tomb-raiding involves sensitive content like grave excavation and the promotion of superstition, regulatory restrictions have tightened over the years, and the subgenre has gradually declined after its peak — new works have grown scarce, and old authors have moved on to other genres.

3. Mystical Professions (神秘职业)

The protagonists of mystical-profession works are ghost-catching priests, yin-yang masters, physiognomists, coroners, corpse retrievers, and other specialized professions closely tied to the occult. The appeal of these works lies in concretizing "the occult" into trades with a sense of profession and inheritance, letting readers experience an eerie atmosphere while learning a self-contained system of folk knowledge alongside the protagonist. A representative work is Innocent Little Dragon (纯洁滴小龙)'s ongoing Corpse Retriever (捞尸人) — the author of the renowned paranormal work 13 Mink Street (明克街13号). This new novel returns to the traditional paranormal lane, depicting corpse-retrieval traditions and underwater eerie events in China's Jiangnan water towns. Ninth Daoist (道门老九)'s Otherworldly Merchant (阴间商人) is also a major work of this subgenre, with the protagonist working in the "netherworld business" and the entire book imbued with the flavor of folk strange-tales. In recent years, the "professions" of these protagonists have grown increasingly diverse, with newer themes like "haunted house realtor" and "hearse driver" appearing, and the "system" element has also begun to enter the subgenre.

In a sense, My House of Horrors (我有一座冒险屋) could also be considered a work of this subgenre — the protagonist runs a haunted house. The book blends infinite flow and game-design elements, and has been well-received in both the Chinese and Western markets.

4. Rule-Based Horror (规则怪谈)

Rule-based horror (guize guaitan, 规则怪谈) is an emerging subgenre that's risen in recent years. It builds atmosphere through seemingly innocuous, actually sinister "rules," "guidelines," and "notices" — entries that contradict each other and conceal hidden meanings, requiring the reader to figure out between the lines "which rule is actually true."

On the Chinese internet, rule-based horror exploded in popularity in 2021 with the "Zoo Rule Horror" (《动物园守则》) on the A Island anonymous board. The piece presented multiple contradictory text fragments — visitor rules, staff rules, security guard notes — and let readers piece together for themselves what was actually lurking in the zoo, triggering huge discussion and secondary creation.

Dedicated rule-based horror works are not numerous in web fiction, but the element has been incorporated into many works in recent years. Representative is Member of Insect Killing Squadron (杀虫队队员)'s Ten Day Ultimatum (十日终焉) (on Fanqie Novel), which combines "rule-based horror" with "infinite flow" — the protagonist must survive in death-game instances each governed by their own set of rules.

Overall, the paranormal genre has always been a niche subgenre with extremely high reader loyalty in male-oriented web fiction. Its readership is relatively fixed, with deep affection for the genre and a discerning eye, and a single good work can accumulate a large base of devoted fans. At the same time, because the genre involves sensitive content such as folk superstition and supernatural horror, regulatory restrictions have always been relatively strict. These regulatory factors mean that paranormal works face significant difficulties in television/film adaptation, commercial promotion, and cross-platform circulation, and these constraints have placed a ceiling on the genre's growth.

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Part Three: Realist Fiction (现实题材)

Realist fiction, as the name suggests, is the web novel genre set against the backdrop of contemporary Chinese society — close to real life and free of any supernatural elements. It sometimes also includes works set against modern Chinese history. Strictly speaking, true realist fiction contains no systems, no cheats, no rebirth, no transmigration, and no other supernatural elements of any kind.

Among male-oriented Chinese web fiction, realist fiction occupies a relatively distinctive position. Its rise and development were not driven from the bottom up by reader markets, but are closely tied to official cultural policy. The Chinese literary tradition holds that literature carries a certain social function — reflecting real life and documenting the changes of an era is one of its important roles. In the Chinese view, non-commercial literary projects that may not perform well in the market but carry cultural value should receive a degree of support from government or public institutions. Similar arrangements exist in some other countries as well. Realist web fiction in China can be understood as a concrete application of this principle in the field of online literature — the China Writers Association, local writers' associations, and the various web novel platforms encourage writers to pursue this genre through writing competitions, royalty subsidies, prize tracks, and TV/film adaptation recommendations.

It should be noted that the commercial performance of realist works generally falls well below that of entertainment-oriented genres like xuanhuan and xianxia, with smaller reader bases and limited subscription numbers. At the same time, the genre places high demands on an author's prose, life experience, and industry knowledge — the writing threshold is considerably higher than ordinary "power fantasy" web fiction, and platforms typically need to offer higher royalties to attract authors. These investments are difficult to recoup commercially, and represent more of a response to policy calls and a sense of cultural responsibility than a business calculation.

At present, realist fiction creation moves along two main tracks. One is the IP adaptation track, aimed at film and television adaptation opportunities. Works on this track tend to focus on under-the-radar professions, family and emotional life, and the conditions of contemporary young people. The other is the prize track, aimed at literary prizes at various levels and at official cultural support. Works on this track tend to focus on grand narratives and the major themes of the era.

Below are the main subcategories of realist fiction.

I. Changes of the Era (时代变迁)

Works that reflect how changing times affect ordinary people's lives. These often span years or even decades, depicting through the story of a family, a community, or a particular region the transformations of Chinese society through major processes such as Reform and Opening Up, urbanization, and population migration.

II. Industrial Development (行业建设)

Works that reflect the achievements of a particular industry or sector during China's modernization. Common topics include heavy industry, semiconductors, logistics, and new energy. These works typically require considerable industry expertise from the author and tend to follow an industry insider as protagonist, showing the development trajectory of an entire industry through that individual's personal growth.

III. Cultural Heritage (文化传承)

Works focused on the protection, transmission, and revitalization of traditional Chinese culture and intangible cultural heritage. Common subjects include traditional handicrafts, opera, traditional Chinese medicine, and martial arts. The core of these works is handling the tension between "tradition and modernity" — how ancient cultural forms can find new space to survive in contemporary society.

IV. Rural Revitalization (乡村振兴)

Works focused on the development and transformation of rural China, including policy initiatives such as the "Three Supports and One Assistance" program (三支一扶: supporting agriculture, education, healthcare, and poverty relief), as well as industry-building organized by the people themselves. The protagonists are typically returning rural youth, village officials, or assigned cadres, whose efforts illustrate the journey of rural China from poverty to revitalization.

V. Public Servants (人民公仆)

Works reflecting the contributions made to the nation and people by grassroots civil servants. The most common subjects involve judicial personnel such as police, prosecutors, and judges. Although firefighters are no longer part of the  Armed Police Force, they are typically grouped into this category as well. These works generally follow the daily work of one or several grassroots public officials, using specific incidents — case investigations, rescue operations — to portray the spirit of service and devotion that defines this community.

VI. Professional Life (职场生涯)

Works focused on the daily work and career growth within specific professions. Unlike "industrial development," which emphasizes grand industrial narratives, professional-life works focus on the individual — the concrete work content, industry rules, and workplace relationships of a particular lawyer, doctor, journalist, designer, consultant, and so on. These works often choose under-the-radar professions as entry points, letting readers "see" how an unfamiliar industry actually works as they follow the protagonist. This is a relatively active direction within the IP adaptation track.

VII. Family Life (家庭生活)

Works focused on the daily life, family relationships, and education concerns of contemporary Chinese families. Protagonists are typically ordinary parents, spouses, or children, with stories revolving around child-rearing, marriage, generational conflict, and particular life challenges.

Special Theme Calls (特定征文)

Beyond the common categories above, in response to specific events or campaigns, government departments at various levels sometimes call for works on particular themes. For example, during the COVID-19 pandemic a batch of "anti-epidemic" works emerged; around the Beijing Winter Olympics a batch of winter-sports sports novels appeared; and in 2025, to mark the 80th anniversary of victory in the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, a batch of resistance war novels emerged. Such works carry strong topicality.

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Closing Remarks

And with that, this series comes to a close. Looking back, we've walked through the 12 major genres of male-oriented Chinese web fiction.

My aim with this series has been to offer readers in the West a guided tour from inside the industry — to give those who are curious a sense of what the landscape of Chinese web fiction actually looks like. I hope it's been useful. If you can find one or two works worth reading from it, or simply come away with more interest in this vast literary ecosystem, that would be even better.

I'll be writing more articles about the Chinese web fiction industry going forward. If there's anything in particular you'd like to know about, please leave a comment on the post.

Finally, thank you to all of you for your ongoing support of Wuxiaworld!

Here is the latest guide from Lucas, Wuxiaworld's Chinese licensing manager! This series is his overview of China's webnovel genres, written using his experience from having worked at one of the top publishers for many years.

This is the second last article in the genre series. Before you read it, guess which sport is the most popular in China!

Previous posts:

• An overview of China's webnovel author rankings
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Xuanhuan
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Fantasy (Qihuan)
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Xianxia
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Urban
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Historical
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Scifi
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Games

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Hello everyone! This is Lucas. Today let’s talk about two relatively niche genres in Chinese male-oriented web fiction: Military and Sports.

Part One: Military (军事)

The Military genre refers to web novels whose central narrative element is the lives of soldiers, military operations, or stories of war. The setting may be contemporary armed forces, past wars (especially the War of Resistance Against Japan and the European theaters of WWI/WWII), or fully imaginary worlds.

The development of Chinese online military fiction is inseparable from one website: Tiexue Reading (铁血读书). Founded in 2001, Tiexue is the country’s earliest and most influential community for military enthusiasts and original military fiction. It is widely called "the cradle of Chinese original military fiction." A large number of its serialized novels were adapted into television dramas, fueling a wave of military-themed TV in the late 2000s and early 2010s. In recent years, however, tightening regulation has pushed military fiction into decline, and Tiexue Reading itself has announced it will shut down on March 8, 2026—marking the end of an era.

Within the Military genre we can identify the following main subgenres:

• Army Life (军旅生涯)
• Flames of the War of Resistance (抗战烽火)
• Espionage (谍战特工)
• War History (战争历史)
• War Fantasy (战争幻想)
• Mercenary Tales (佣兵传奇)

I’ll introduce each subgenre and its representative works below.

I. Army Life (军旅生涯)

Army Life depicts the lives and training of modern Chinese soldiers. Protagonists are typically special forces or elite-unit members. The story usually begins with the protagonist’s enlistment and follows him through brutal recruit training, selection for special forces, brotherhood forged in shared hardship, and missions such as international peacekeeping, counter-terrorism, and special operations in peacetime.

This subgenre keeps its lens firmly inside the barracks, with greater emphasis on tactical detail, equipment description, and the realistic texture of military life. Many of its authors have actual military service backgrounds, giving the works a high degree of professional authenticity.

The foundational work is Liu Meng (刘猛)’s Leave the Last Bullet to Me (最后一颗子弹留给我), later adapted into the TV drama My Chief and My Regiment (我是特种兵). The novel follows the college student "Xiao Zhuang" through his enlistment as a reconnaissance soldier and his eventual rise to top-tier special forces operative. It essentially defined every element of the network military novel: the arc from green recruit to hardened veteran, the harsh training scenes, the brotherhood, and the unwavering commitment to military honor.

Another peak is Fenwu Yaoji (纷舞妖姬)’s Bullet Marks (弹痕). The work centers on protagonist Zhan Xiage, narrating his transformation from a directionless youth into a soldier of the elite "Fifth Class Force," eventually becoming its commander. Fenwu Yaoji also wrote follow-ups such as The Fifth Force (第五部队), and remains one of the pillars of this genre.

More recent notable works include Yan Qiguan (严七官)’s Special Forces Years (特种岁月) and Buqiang (步枪)’s The Great Falcon (大国战隼).

II. Flames of the War of Resistance (抗战烽火)

Here, “War of Resistance” is short for “The War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”

These stories take place between 1937 and 1945, depicting Chinese soldiers, partisans, agents, or ordinary civilians resisting the Japanese aggression.

In 2000, Du Liang (都梁) wrote Drawing Sword (亮剑). The novel was later adapted into a hugely popular TV drama. Although not itself a web novel, it had a profound influence on War-of-Resistance web fiction.

Early works in this subgenre were closer in style to traditional literature. Because this period carries extraordinary significance for the Chinese nation, the tone is somber and tragic, ill-suited to "playful" treatment. These works tend to reflect the contribution of a collective—a group, a unit—rather than the individual heroism characteristic of mainstream web fiction. An early representative is Jiutu (酒徒)’s End of the Beacon Smoke (烽烟尽处).

Around 2020, with the rise of free-reading platforms, some works began combining the War of Resistance setting with rebirth and system tropes. But these did not become mainstream. The reasons: first, the Chinese ultimately won the War of Resistance—though at enormous cost in blood and sacrifice, there is nothing to regret, and no need for a time-traveler to come back and save the country. Second, the individual heroism implicit in system and rebirth elements runs counter to the somber tone of this historical period.

A bizarre subtopic also briefly appeared during this period—"cuckolding the invading Japanese army". The protagonist transmigrates, gains a system, and becomes stronger by cuckolding Japanese soldiers—you can imagine where it went from there. It appeared briefly and was swiftly stamped out by regulators.

Today, most War of Resistance content has shifted into the framework of TV/film fanfiction)—particularly stories set in the world of Drawing Sword. Strictly speaking, this is not real history but a parallel universe to the TV series, so system and rebirth elements face no restriction. Representative works include Wolf Warrior in the World of Drawing Sword (我在亮剑当战狼).

III. Espionage (谍战特工)

Espionage is an important offshoot of War of Resistance fiction. Stories focus on the underground struggle between Chinese Communist agents and the Nationalists, Japanese spies, or Wang Jingwei collaborationist agents in occupied or semi-occupied zones. The genre originated from traditional literature such as The Message (风声). Web novel representatives include Engagement (交锋) and Lost Trace of Spies (谍影迷踪).

IV. War History (战争历史)

War History depicts historical wars—primarily the European theaters of WWI and WWII. Protagonists are typically Chinese transmigrators who wake to find themselves in late-19th- or early-20th-century Germany, Russia, France, or Britain, and must find their place in the chaos preceding the two world wars. I’ve covered this in my introduction to the History genre.

Common plotlines: a transmigrator joins the German General Staff before WWI and tries to prevent (or accelerate) the catastrophe; a transmigrator is born into a Junker family and must decide how to respond to Nazism’s rise; a transmigrator enlists in the Red Army or Wehrmacht as a common soldier and climbs the ranks through extraordinary circumstances.

Representative works include Twilight of the Empire: Starting from Dunkirk (帝国余晖：从敦刻尔克开始) and Iron Cross (铁十字).

V. War Fantasy (战争幻想)

War Fantasy grafts the structures of military fiction—armies, campaigns, command, logistics, the camaraderie of soldiers—onto a fictional world. That world may include magic, dragons, gods, or other supernatural elements, but the narrative center stays on military matters: large-scale strategy and tactics, fleets and legions, military hierarchy, and the cost of war—rather than individual cultivation or magical adventure.

Representative works include Arc of Artillery Fire (炮火弧线), Stormy Waves, Setting Sun (惊涛落日), and My Third Reich (我的第三帝国).

VI. Mercenary Tales (佣兵故事)

Mercenary fiction follows modern-day Chinese protagonists working as international mercenaries—usually operating in Africa, the Middle East, South America, or Southeast Asian conflict zones. Protagonists are typically military prodigies who sell their combat skills on the international market. They may operate alone or lead a small team; missions range from convoy escort to coup support, from hostage rescue to warlord confrontation.

The foundational work of this subgenre is widely recognized as Cixue (刺血)’s Wolf Pack (狼群) (2003–2006, serialized on Qidian). It follows college student Xing Tian as he accidentally joins the mercenary organization "Wolf Pack," carries out missions across the globe, and ultimately uncovers a transnational conspiracy.

Another widely acknowledged classic is Rushuiyi (如水意)’s The Mercenary’s War (佣兵的战争). Rushuiyi is one of the few authors today who specializes exclusively in military fiction; his other works include The Spy’s War (间谍的战争) and Firepower Is King (火力为王), most of which focus on modern mercenary themes.

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Part Two: Sports (体育)

Sports fiction centers on competitive sports, depicting a protagonist’s rise from obscure beginnings to becoming a top-tier athlete in a chosen sport.

This is also a niche genre. It must be acknowledged that China’s grassroots sports industry is not as mature as those of Europe, the United States, Japan, or Korea. There’s no shortage of people in China who don’t care for sports—myself included.

Sports fiction appeared in Chinese web fiction around 2003. The representative work of this period was Campus Basketball Storm (校园篮球风云), whose style was clearly influenced by Japanese sports manga such as Slam Dunk and Captain Tsubasa. Early sports fiction leaned toward grassroots narrative—closer in tone to early esports fiction.

Around 2014, the "system" element was introduced into sports fiction. Sports video games such as FIFA, NBA 2K, and Football Manager had built-in well-developed systems and statistical frameworks, which were widely borrowed by sports fiction authors. This became the classic attribute-panel system. Today the majority of sports fiction works incorporate system elements.

For sports fiction, systems offer several advantages:

— Traditional sports rely heavily on natural talent. Talent gaps cannot be closed by hard work alone. Systems smooth over this gap, even enabling underdogs to surpass the talented. While a system cannot let the Chinese national team win the World Cup, it can at least allow a Chinese athlete to shine in Europe’s top football leagues.

— Systems make the protagonist’s ability and growth more visually intuitive. Authors can write more easily, and readers can follow more clearly.

Chinese sports fiction is heavily skewed toward a few sports. Basketball is the most common, followed by football, with all other sports making up a small fraction. This is tied to China’s grassroots sports landscape. Sports like racing, baseball, and rugby—popular in other countries—have very few participants in China. And sports where China is dominant—table tennis, diving—are either too low in visual drama, or offer little narrative novelty given how many champions China has already produced.

I’ll introduce each by sport below.

I. Basketball (篮球)

Basketball is by far the largest sports-fiction subgenre, both in terms of number of works and size of readership. The reason is simple—almost every Chinese person plays some basketball during their school years, and the NBA’s following in China far exceeds that of any other professional sports league. Basketball fiction is essentially NBA fanfiction. Story settings are almost entirely in America: NCAA, draft night, rookie seasons, playoffs, finals. Protagonists are Chinese-American players, overseas Chinese students, or even Chinese souls transmigrating into the body of an active NBA player.

Representative works include Add Me In, I’m Not That Good at Playing (加一个，我不太会打) and All I Really Want Is To Play Basketball (我真的只是想打铁).

Worth noting is a not-uncommon variant within basketball fiction: the coach genre (教练流). The protagonist isn’t a player but a team-management figure or head coach, starting as a scout or assistant coach and ultimately becoming a renowned strategist. A representative work is The Pope of the Basketball Court (篮坛教皇). Coach-line fiction places higher demands on the author’s basketball theory background, because it tests tactical systems rather than individual heroism.

II. Football (足球)

Football in China has a smaller audience than basketball, but extremely high fan loyalty, making football fiction another important branch of the sports genre. No discussion of football fiction can skip one name: Lin Hai Ting Tao (林海听涛). A platinum author at China Literature Group, he is widely hailed as "the foremost author of original competitive fiction" and "the standard-bearer of football fiction." His representative works include The Winner Takes All (胜者为王), Heart of the Champion (冠军之心), and Fox in the Penalty Area (禁区之狐). He essentially defined the basic writing paradigm of Chinese football web fiction, and every subsequent football-fiction author has been directly influenced by his work. Two of his other works have English translations available on Novel Updates: Godfather of Champions (冠军教父) and Would You Mind If I Play? (我踢球你在意吗).

Early authors and readers dreamed of saving Chinese football. In 2007, Guo Nu (郭怒) wrote Rebirth 1994: Football Storm (重生1994之足坛风云), the story of a reborn protagonist who founds a domestic club, and tries to lift Chinese football to greatness. Later, everyone realized this path was too far removed from reality. So in subsequent works, the protagonist’s career path is almost always going to a European powerhouse—starting in the Manchester United academy, Bayern youth team, Real Madrid B team, etc., and gradually climbing onto the world stage.

III. Other (其他)

Beyond basketball and football, sports fiction includes several smaller subgenres, each with its own appeal and dedicated readership.

Racing (赛车). China’s auto industry started late, and its car culture is relatively underdeveloped. As a result, racing-themed web fiction is rare. The most famous work is Wuxian Xunhuan (无限循环)’s Spokesman of the God of Racing (车神代言人), which follows the protagonist’s gradual rise to become a professional rally driver.

This year’s WSBK season saw the Chinese motorcycle brand ZXmoto rise dramatically, winning five titles in the SSP class and creating buzz on the Chinese internet. I suspect we may see a wave of motorcycle-themed novels appear this year, although it is a notoriously difficult subgenre to write.

Go (围棋). Almost every Chinese person knows of Go, but few actually play it. The 2017 match between 9-dan Ke Jie and AlphaGo generated significant online attention. A representative work is Go: Me and AI 50-50 (围棋：我和AI五五开),and I Really Didn’t Mean to Play Go! (我真没想下围棋啊)

Track and Field (田径). Primarily sprinting, distance running, and marathon events. Throwing events such as shot put and javelin are virtually absent. A representative work is Run Out of My Life (跑出我人生).

Combat Sports (格斗). MMA, boxing, and similar disciplines. Representative works include Boxing Superstar (拳坛巨星) and Invincible Boxing (拳无敌).

All-Around (全能流). The protagonist isn’t confined to a single sport, but uses a system to simultaneously win championships across track and field, basketball, football, tennis, swimming, fencing, and more. The genre’s foundational work is Victory General (过关斩将)’s Almighty Athlete (全能运动员). It broke the sports-fiction convention of "one novel, one sport" and offered the ultimate fantasy of "farming gold medals at the Olympics."

Tennis, badminton, table tennis, and various other sports have scattered works as well, but none have produced an influential title to date.

Here is the latest guide from Lucas, Wuxiaworld's Chinese licensing manager! This series is his overview of China's webnovel genres, written using his experience from having worked at one of the top publishers for many years.

Today we're covering game novels! There's lots of interesting info here, including backstory for Mars Gravity and Lucas, as well as China's relationship with Faker. And do any of you already know about "customized novels"?

Previous posts:

• An overview of China's webnovel author rankings
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Xuanhuan
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Fantasy (Qihuan)
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Xianxia
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Urban
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres – Historical
• Introduction to Chinese webnovel genres –

Scifi

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Hello everyone! This is Lucas. Today, let’s talk about the “Games” genre in Chinese male-oriented web novels.

Game-themed novels refer to works in which “games” serve as the main vehicle of the story or as a core element. In 2002, 陈凌(X) published the novel 《梦幻魔界王》 on Qidian. This work is regarded as the earliest game-themed web novel. To date, game novels have a 24-year history. We can divide their development into several periods:

2002–2007: Growth Period. Works mainly focused on virtual MMORPGs and game-isekai themes. Writing styles varied widely, and no dominant formula had yet emerged. Early masters such as Skeleton Wizard (骷髅精灵) and Butterfly Blue (蝴蝶蓝) began to make their names.

2008–2016: Boom Period. China’s gaming market flourished as never before. Various subgenres of game novels matured, and outstanding works appeared one after another.

2017–2021: Decline Period. The gaming industry slowed, and MMORPGs gradually declined. Game companies shifted toward developing mobile titles. Game novels suffered from a generational gap and limited profitability, and many veteran masters began transitioning to other genres.

2022 to Present: Recovery Period. With the rise of free-reading platforms, game novels saw a degree of revival, although it has been hard to recapture their former glory. Virtual MMORPGs remain only modestly popular, but new derivative subgenres such as Mass Class-Change (全民转职) and Mass Survival (全民求生) have gained considerable traction on free-reading platforms.

Based on where the protagonist plays, how they interact with the game, and the type of game involved, we can divide game novels into several major categories:

Virtual MMORPG (虚拟网游)

Game Isekai (游戏异界)

Global Game (全民游戏)

Esports (电子竞技)

Crossover Novels (跨界文) — fusions of game elements with other genres

Below, I’ll introduce the characteristics and history of each of these subgenres.

I. Virtual MMORPG (虚拟网游)

This is the oldest theme in game novels. The protagonist is a highly skilled gamer who plays through a keyboard and mouse, a VR headset, or a game pod. He levels up in the game, builds a guild, and ultimately reaches the top of the server rankings. The achievements and wealth he gains in-game also affect his real-world life.

Early virtual MMORPG novels often drew material from real-world games such as World of Warcraft, Warcraft III, Legend of Mir, and Heroes of Might and Magic. Authors would modify and innovate on these games to bring them closer to “the ideal version of the game in their own minds.”

Representative early works in this genre include 《猛龙过江》 by Skeleton Wizard (骷髅精灵), 《独创天涯》 by Butterfly Blue (蝴蝶蓝), and 《蜀山》 by The Wandering Toad (流浪的蛤蟆).

After 2008, the “rebirth” element became widely used in virtual MMORPG novels. The protagonist had been a player of the same game in his previous life. After being reborn, he uses the knowledge and experience of his past life to stay one step ahead of other players—claiming hidden quests, obtaining hidden class-change items, and so on.

Representative rebirth-genre works of this period include Reincarnation Of The Strongest Sword God (重生之最强剑神) and Rebirth of the Thief Who Roamed the World (重生之贼行天下) by Mad Snail (发飙的蜗牛).

A few other important authors from this period also deserve mention.

The first is Lost Leaf (失落叶). There may be debate over the “tallest mountain” of the virtual MMORPG genre, but when it comes to the “longest river,” it is undoubtedly his. He entered the genre in 2007 and has since written more than a dozen excellent works. Even as the genre declined and many of his peers transitioned to other themes, he chose to persist. Most of his works use the first-person perspective and have strong personal flair. Representative works include VRMMO: The Unrivaled (网游之天下无双) and Skyroad (天行).

The second is Mars Gravity (火星引力), the author of Against the Gods (逆天邪神). In fact, he made his debut writing online-game novels, and before Against the Gods he had written three virtual MMORPG works. He blended online-game elements with urban elements: the protagonist not only sweeps through the game but is also a major figure in real life. However, all three of these works were taken down by Chinese platforms because of excessive sexual content.

The third is San Tian Liang Jiao (三天两觉). His Thriller Paradise (惊悚乐园) fused online-game elements with the “Infinity” genre, and its novel setting and unique protagonist personality drew enthusiastic reactions from readers. These days, however, his interests have shifted toward game streaming, and he updates the novel far less frequently than before.

After 2017, the virtual MMORPG genre was a shadow of its former self—but the man called Lost Leaf (失落叶) kept holding the line.

After 2022, online-game novels enjoyed a partial revival. The new generation of virtual MMORPG works is far more aggressive: most adopt a structure of rebirth combined with top-tier talents/divine artifacts/skills. The protagonist is reborn at the moment the game launches and immediately rushes to obtain the most powerful abilities, dealing devastating blows to other players right from the newbie village. Examples include Online Game: God-Tier Assassin, I Am the Shadow (网游：神级刺客，我即是暗影).

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II. Game Isekai (游戏异界)

The protagonist transmigrates into the world of a game. He can still use the “game system”—experience points, levels, attribute values, and so on. Like in a game, he gains experience and raises his level in this new world. But unlike in a game, death here is permanent—there is no respawn.

One subset of game-isekai stories sends the protagonist into an existing real-world game. The most common are Warcraft III and World of Warcraft. Representative works include The Diary of Working in Stormwind (暴风城打工实录) and 《暴风法神》. In a sense, Dungeons & Dragons works can also be considered game-isekai—especially those set in “Faerûn”—but we usually categorize them under fantasy.

With the rise of anime-style mobile games, the web-novel market has also seen works set against the backdrop of titles like Genshin Impact and Azur Lane. A representative example is Looking for the Lost Ship Girl (寻找走丢的舰娘).

Another type uses original worldbuilding, with the author inventing a fictional game world. Representative works include Another World’s Versatile Crafting Master (异界全职业大师), The Amber Sword (琥珀之剑), and Borrowed Sword (借剑).

Game-isekai novels also have a relatively new but highly distinctive subcategory: the Fourth Crisis (第四天灾). The concept comes from the game Stellaris, where it refers to players, whose actions are highly unpredictable and even more destructive than the three in-game crises.

In these stories, the protagonist is summoned into a game world and becomes a member of it. His only support comes from his fellow Earthlings—the players. He can summon them through some mechanism, or merge their consciousness with “vessels” in this world. From the players’ perspective, they’re simply playing a game with extraordinarily high realism. Dying in the “game” usually means a long login ban, or even an account wipe—but it doesn’t affect their real-world lives.

In reality, however, this “game” doesn’t actually exist. The protagonist must therefore find ways to package and upgrade the “system” so it looks like a genuine game. For the players, they get joy out of the “game.” For the protagonist, he gains a powerful, motley crew of enforcers who are easily satisfied with small in-game rewards. With their help, he gradually becomes the greatest behind-the-scenes power in the world.

This subgenre has highly complex worldbuilding and a fairly high writing barrier. The most outstanding works include The Legendary Mechanic (超神机械师) and This Game is too Realistic (这游戏也太真实了).

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III. Global Game (全民游戏)

This is a relatively new subgenre. It’s closely related to “Global Awakening” in science fiction, except that the power system here is more game-like and data-driven. A “game” descends upon the entire world, forcing many people to participate, and the outcomes determine their own and others’ fates.

This subgenre has several subcategories:

1. Mass Lord (全民领主)

The worldbuilding here is similar to strategy games like Heroes of Might and Magic and Age of Empires. Each character receives a piece of territory, starting from a small village. They develop internal politics and technology at home, while forming alliances and waging war abroad—befriending the distant and attacking the near. The protagonist’s power depends on how developed his territory becomes. Representative works include Lord of the Gaming World (网游之全民领主) and The People’s God: Sacrificing Trillions to Ascend (全民神祇：我献祭亿万生灵成神).

2. Mass Survival (全民求生)

This subgenre takes inspiration from various survival games such as Rust, Don’t Starve, H1Z1, and Raft. Players are transported into a game and confront scarcity of resources and harsh natural environments. They must find ways to acquire more resources and earn the right to keep living. Of course, a game system is standard issue: everyone can see their own attribute values. The earliest survival novels were “cave-survival” works, where characters are trapped in pitch-black caves with only a pickaxe in hand and must dig endlessly to obtain hidden resources. Later, the settings expanded greatly, with “highway-survival” novels appearing (each person has a vehicle, everyone races down the road gathering food and parts to upgrade their ride) and “ocean-survival” works (with settings similar to Raft), among others.

Representative works include Grand Voyage: Surviving on a Ghost Ship (全民大航海，我开局一条幽灵船) and Sequence Highway Survival: I Upgrade Supplies in the Apocalypse (序列公路求生：我在末日升级物资).

3. National Fortune Game (国运游戏)

A game descends upon the world, and each country must select (or randomly designate) a number of citizens to enter the game as “players.” The players’ outcomes determine the fate of their entire country. Winners enjoy favorable weather and prosperity; losers face natural disasters one after another, and may even risk national extinction.

The “countries” in this subgenre are usually modeled on real-world ones. Unsurprisingly, this means the genre carries a fairly strong nationalistic streak. Readers should keep that in mind when picking up these works.

This subgenre was popular for a time, but stoking reader resonance through hostility toward other nations was bound to attract regulatory attention. As a result, there aren’t many such works left today, and the survivors tend to be relatively restrained in tone.

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IV. Esports (电子竞技)

The concept of “esports” needs little introduction—simply put, these are competitive events using video games as the medium. In novels of this subgenre, the protagonist becomes a professional player of a particular game and competes with other esports players from around the world. This subgenre is closely tied to the real-world esports industry, and real clubs and famous players often appear in these works.

Below, I’ll introduce the genre game by game.

StarCraft (星际争霸)

This is an RTS game released by Blizzard in 1998 and was one of the earliest esports titles. In the early 2000s, it was extremely popular in Chinese internet cafés. Between 2005 and 2008, Innocent (无罪) wrote three StarCraft-themed esports novels: 《SC之彼岸花》, 《流氓高手》, and 《扬眉》, causing a sensation at the time. But as the gaming market shifted, RTS games’ market share gradually declined, and no other influential works appeared in this genre afterward.

CS (Counter-Strike)

The greatness of this game needs no further explanation. Together with StarCraft, it formed the earliest esports memories of Chinese gamers. In the early 2000s, China hosted countless CS community tournaments—or “internet café tournaments.” Players spontaneously formed teams, with no club operations and no salaries, fighting it out on the battlefield purely on passion. In 2006, the author 边城浪子 wrote three CS-themed esports novels: 《CS边城浪子》, 《CS乱世巨星》, and 《CS英雄本色》. They captured the early Chinese esports ecosystem very well.

Afterward, the esports industry became increasingly professionalized. Yet Chinese clubs’ performance in CS could only be described as disappointing. Some game companies released other FPS titles (such as Tencent’s CrossFire), drawing away large parts of the player base. CS’s popularity in China declined significantly, and the genre fell into recession alongside it.

Surprisingly, however, CS has surged in popularity again in China in recent years. The number of Chinese CS players has grown sharply. Valve really does know what it’s doing when it comes to running tournaments, and CS matches are exceptionally watchable—even an FPS scrub like me ends up watching a few games now and then. As a result, a new wave of CS-themed esports novels has appeared, second only in number to LOL works. An example is The Last Dance, Dancing to Professional Stardom (CS：最后一舞，舞成职业通天代*)*. In works from this period, the protagonist usually joins a famous team and reaches the world-tournament stage—just not a Chinese team. Chinese players have already come to terms with the weakness of Chinese CS.

League of Legends (英雄联盟)

After entering the Chinese market in 2010, this game directly competed with Dota and grabbed an enormous share of the market. In its early years, its esports operations were excellent, which spawned a large number of related web novels. The protagonist joins a particular team in a particular era and fights side by side with star players that readers know well. In a sense, you could call these a kind of “fanfiction.”

In 2013, Chaos (乱) wrote Undefeatable – League of Legends (联盟之谁与争锋). It was one of the earliest LOL-themed esports novels and had a major impact on the genre’s development.

There’s one topic you can’t avoid in LOL novels: “Toppling Korea.” Korean clubs’ and players’ dominance in this game speaks for itself, and even now there are still Korean players representing Chinese clubs as imports. Chinese players and viewers have not been satisfied with Chinese clubs’ performance—China has the largest player base, fans spend real money supporting clubs, and yet the players draw huge salaries while failing to produce results. Driven by this frustration, some authors choose to let Chinese clubs win in their novels. The most common storyline goes: the protagonist was a professional LOL player in his previous life, but not at the top tier—he never even beat the Koreans. Carrying his regret and frustration, he is reborn. After his rebirth, he leads a club (typically with an all-Chinese roster) through tournaments large and small, and ultimately reaches the World Championship final.

There, he meets the final boss, Faker.

After all, only by defeating the legend of the present can the protagonist become a new legend.

In recent years, some protagonists have stopped fixating on beating Faker. He really is too strong—he has, as of now, won six World Championships. In these works, the protagonist becomes his teammate, or—his coach.

There’s a Chinese internet slang phrase, “If you can’t beat them, join them,” that captures this idea exactly.

Dota

I’ve put more than ten thousand hours into Dota 2. I’ve always hoped a phenomenon-level Dota-themed esports novel would appear—but it never has.

My guess is, first, that the Chinese Dota player base is much smaller than that of LOL; and second, that Chinese clubs have actually performed quite well in Dota, especially from 2010 to 2016. Players don’t carry many regrets.

PUBG (绝地求生)

This is another phenomenon-level game. Its esports operations have been quite good in recent years, and the matches are very watchable. A representative work is Kar98K Upon Touchdown! (落地一把98K).

At the same time, this subgenre also has many works in which the protagonist is a streamer rather than a pro player.

After PUBG launched in 2017, it caught the wave of the streaming industry, and in China it was streamers who actually made the game popular. Streamers produced a huge volume of viral moments in the game, bringing audiences plenty of joy. Naturally, novels of this kind followed. The protagonist needs not only gaming skill but also the ability to entertain viewers and produce viral moments. Famous streamer memes are heavily referenced and re-enacted in these works.

Delta Force (三角洲行动)

This game is developed and operated by Tencent, and its explosive popularity in the Chinese market is no surprise. Honestly, its esports scene is fairly dull, but the streaming side works very well. Over the past two years, a large number of streaming-focused novels have appeared on platforms like Qidian.

Original Titles (原创项目)

In most cases, the game the protagonist plays is some real-world title. There are exceptions, however, the most famous being The King’s Avatar (全职高手). The author designed a brand-new game on the foundation of Dungeon & Fighter, combining DNF’s class system with fighting-game-style controls and the team-battle systems of MMORPGs. This work may well be the most well-known and influential of all esports novels.

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V. Crossover Novels (跨界文)

Listed here are works that don’t strictly belong to the “Games” category but are closely related to video games.

Game Development (游戏开发)

Strictly speaking, this subgenre should be classified as Urban. The protagonist is a game designer who needs to develop games and attract players in order to earn wealth, fame, or other rewards.

The most famous example is Losing Money to Be a Tycoon (亏成首富从游戏开始).

Survival Games (生存游戏)

Works in this subgenre take inspiration from titles like Saw and Squid Game. A group of strangers is transported to some location where they must complete a series of “games” to survive—and along the way, plenty of them die horribly.

The most famous example is Ten Day Ultimatum (十日终焉), one of the top works on the Fanqie Novel platform (番茄). The author of Losing Money to Be a Tycoon also wrote a work in this style last year, God’s Imitator (神的模仿犯). Personally, I prefer this one.

Customized Novels (定制文)

China’s online gaming industry once enjoyed a glorious era when companies could make money doing almost anything. During that time, game companies threw cash around to license the IPs of famous web novels, driving rights fees to astronomical levels. Some companies weren’t satisfied with buying ready-made works, however, and chose instead to collaborate with authors and platforms, having authors create works according to their pre-set worldbuilding. These are “customized novels.”

The most famous customized novel is Perfect World (完美世界). There is a Chinese online-game company also called Perfect World, which owns the eponymous Perfect World game and the game adapted from Zhu Xian. The company’s president was a great fan of web novels and was on good terms with many famous authors at the time. Reportedly, he paid a hefty sum to have Chen Dong (辰东) rename his new book to Perfect World. In hindsight, it was a very profitable deal.

Other customized novels include World of Xianxia (仙侠世界) and The Last Apostle (最后一个使徒).

Additionally, there is word that The Sorcerer’s Handbook (术师手册) is also a customized novel—which is why we can see a highly developed game system in the work, complete with gacha-pull and character-development elements. However, due to the game company’s mismanagement, the final payment was never made.

Closing Note

I’ve been gaming for many years. Before becoming a web-novel editor, I even briefly worked as a game designer for two months. The “Games” category is one of my personal favorites and one I feel I understand best. If there’s anything you’d like to know more about—whether it’s novels or games—feel free to reach out.