Introduction

In late 2021, three books made an unexpected appearance on the New York Times trade paperback bestsellers list. These books were novels by the pseudonymous Chinese writer Mo Xiang Tong Xiu: The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Heaven’s Official Blessing, and The Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System. What sets these novels apart is their origin. Mo Xiang Tong Xiu is not a famous member of the Chinese literary establishment, nor are her novels internationally acclaimed works of fiction. These novels were originally published on the web. As such, they represent a form of literary production that is often neglected by Western scholars of Sinophone literature as well as by the Western reading public at large. This neglect creates a gap in the understanding of Chinese literature. As Dylan Levi King observes, the lists produced by Chinese readers of the “best” or most anticipated novels are markedly different from those of translators (King, 2020). King argues that “[w]hat makes it into English translation is often shaped by the idea that Chinese fiction’s main function is to explain China” (King, 2020). As a result, much popular literature is neglected by Western critics. Recently, however, scholars have begun to turn their attention to what Chinese readers read for entertainment, as attested in the subtitle to Megan Walsh’s The Subplot: What China is Reading and Why it Matters. This is an important shift in the continuing process of improving Western scholars' understanding of Chinese literature.

This paper suggests one way of reading Chinese web literature that takes it seriously both as literature and as a cultural document. It does so by focusing on a particular element of a particular genre: the protagonist who enacts troubling, excessive violence as seen in the xianxia or cultivation-fantasy genre. This genre follows martial heroes who practice a particular skill known as “cultivation,” which is the development of their internal powers. Novels such as Er Gen’s I Shall Seal the Heavens present readers with wish-fulfillment fantasies of powerless heroes who, through a combination of luck and cunning, become tremendously powerful. This power is expressed through martial combat—that is to say, through violence. These characters are deeply rooted in a literature that is itself a development of a genre of novels popularized by writers like Jin Yong (Louis Cha). Thus, web fiction should be read in conversation with both contemporary Chinese culture and the literary tradition it inherits. The purpose of this paper is to trance this genealogy from the earliest Chinese martial arts novels through to the novels populating the web. While specific historical circumstances shape the way this protagonist is received, he remains a consistent figure in Chinese literature. As time has passed, however, the focus of Chinese martial literature has shifted from unreachable heroes to attainable antiheroes. Thus, though the martial warrior has always been a figure of wish-fulfillment, the precise nature of that function has shifted. Contemporary web novelists ironize the heroic protagonist of the traditional martial arts story.

Martial arts fiction began with The Water Margin, a 14th-century story about the adventures of over a hundred outlaws. The genre continued to exist, in various ways, but the first modern martial arts novels (known as wuxia) arose in the 20th century. Wuxia is a mode of historical Romance that centers on heroic swordsmen. The most well-known author in this field is probably Jin Yong. For this article, we will treat him as a representative of wuxia fiction. Today, martial arts fiction has moved online with xianxia novels. The xianxia novel is a special development of wuxia which focuses on magic. The protagonists are often “cultivators,“ Taoist figures who concentrate on developing their innate qi energy, allowing them to perform superhuman feats and become “Immortals.” For this essay, we will focus on I Shall Seal the Heavens by Er Gen. This paper will limit its discussion to this genealogy, suggesting that xianxia web novels should be discussed as continuations of a robust tradition of Chinese writing. More specifically, this article focuses on the troubling figure of the martial hero. This figure has its origins in the early martial fiction of The Water Margin and has developed over the centuries to meet the demands of contemporaneous audiences. By ironizing the traditional martial protagonist, the authors of xianxia novels create a hero designed for contemporary society, one who forms a utopian counter-community in the face of a hostile world.

Current research

In recent years, web fiction has become a cultural force attracting close attention from observers from both East and West. Some critics see in this explosion a tremendous opportunity for expanding the reach of Chinese literature. Online writer Xiaoqi School roots the potential of this form in its universality, since “because online writers write about love and hatred, moral concepts and esthetic habits of ordinary people, online literature can reach a wide audience and achieve success in the market” (Yu, 2018). As of the end of 2023, CNNIC has released data showing that the number of users of online literature in China has reached 520 million, with a total of over 30 million works and approximately 2 million new works created annually. As Rachel Cheung observes in the Paper Republic Guide to Contemporary Chinese Literature, web fiction has become prized “as intellectual property with the potential to become movies, television series, manga, animations, and video games” (Cheung, 2022). In recent years, some scholars such as Zhang Yiwu have even referred to Chinese online literature as one of the “four major cultural phenomena in the world” along with American Hollywood movies, Japanese anime, and Korean TV dramas (Zhang, 2019). In the 2023 Blue Book of Chinese Online Literature, the overseas market size of Chinese online literature exceeded 4 billion yuan, with a total of nearly 200 million active overseas users, covering most countries and regions around the world (China Writer, 2024). Many web novels have been adapted and broadcast simultaneously on overseas video websites and on television stations in China. Netflix has purchased the broadcasting rights of several of these adaptations, such as Langya List, The Legend of Zhen Huan, and The Untamed. Animated adaptations, such as Fights Break Sphere, Soul Land, and The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, have also received a rating of 8.5 or above on IMDB.

Much of the scholarship surrounding web fiction has focused on its production and dissemination. According to Yan Wenjun, the success of Chinese web literature among international audiences arises from the thematic elements of the narratives. Yan argues that a significant portion of the Chinese web novels that have gained popularity abroad feature martial arts and fantasy themes. For overseas readers, the mysterious, ancient Oriental country and the fantastical imaginary “Jianghu” form a double attraction (Yan, 2023). Chen Qijia & Song Ge claim that web novels often strive to craft idealized protagonists (Chen and Song, 2024). This idealization of character traits resonates with the cultural values of the source material and also provides a framework for readers to engage with and appreciate the depth and complexity of the characters portrayed in these novels. Certainly, this approach is valid and yields important insights. Other fields of genre research have witnessed a similar phenomenon, as Gill Plain attests in his study of crime fiction (Plain, 2001). Moreover, reception—the interaction of the audience with the author—is part of the form’s esthetics, as Zhang Ning observes (Zhang, 2015).

Critics have also analyzed the literary qualities of the form, and it is here that our primary intervention takes place. In his 2015 study Internet Literature in China, Michael Hockx calls web literature “a major feature of Chinese literary life, and of the Internet in China, for well over a decade” (Hockx, 2015). Zhang Ning argues that web literature must be read in real-time, keeping pace with the author’s output, and that this creates structural qualities unique to the form. Zhang suggests that this difference in structure is not a flaw, but that the web novel’s openness gives rise to alternate modes of storytelling that push against the Western, logocentric esthetics of the traditional novel (Zhang, 2015). Web novels open themselves up to active, real-time participation between the writer and the audience. Zhang concludes his discussion with a suggestion that scholars should work to establish and discover the esthetic “rules” that make internet fiction distinct (Zhang, 2015).

Zhang is quite correct to highlight the discontinuities between web fiction and traditional fiction. However, the continuities are equally strong. Web fiction manifests a profound continuity with historical types of Chinese literature. In the remainder of this article, we wish to focus on the ways in which Chinese web fiction—particularly xianxia fiction—can be read both as offering a commentary on contemporary anxieties besetting its readers and as continuous with the Chinese literary tradition. We are not suggesting that xianxia novels are allegories for contemporary China but that a proper understanding of the xianxia phenomenon must pay attention to its antecedents, particularly the novels of Jin Yong.

The Wuxia protagonist

In Chinese, the names of both martial arts novels (wuxia) and fantasy-adventure novels (xianxia) contain the character xia (chivalrous hero). The definition of xia can be traced back to the Records of the Grand Historian (91 BC) at the earliest, although its definition has evolved considerably since that time. Han Yunbo offers four characteristics of xia: (1) prioritizing personal loyalty over public duty to the court; (2) valuing righteousness over wealth and not being enslaved by material possessions; (3) adhering to a moral code that emphasizes selflessness, altruism, and a sense of camaraderie; and 4) possessing a strong sense of personal freedom (Han, 1994). That is to say, true chivalrous heroes are generally selfless, sacrificing, self-restrained, noble, and righteous. However, during the Han Dynasty, there was a severe crack-down on xia. Accordingly, these heroes gradually retreated from urban areas and into the wilderness, where they became associated with bandits.

The character of the protagonist is conditioned by the world in which he lives. John Christopher Hamm roots the development of the wuxia genre in the classic Chinese novel The Water Margin. Xia in the world of The Water Margin exists in duality. On the one hand, the protagonists fight injustices and are generous with wealth. On the other hand, they are bandits. But they have their own code of conduct, and their faithfulness to it gives most of the outlaws of the marsh more positive aspects of xia. The Water Margin is a foundational part of Chinese popular fiction and culture; it has been often adapted and modified and has worked its way into the Chinese popular consciousness. As the title suggests, the novel is concerned with margins, with edges—with places where people exist outside society (Hamm, 2005). The numerous protagonists of The Water Margin exist on the boundaries, within a world they have created for themselves. As Hamm narrates it, the tension between ordered society and the shadow society of the outlaws, as well as within that shadow world, between the bandits themselves, gives the book its power (Hamm, 2005). This idea of being marginalized, of being outcast, will continue in the fiction of Jin Yong and become dominant within the online productions making up the xianxia genre.

The outlaws of the marsh are devoted to a chivalric code that will recur throughout the development of the genre. As Qi Yukun observes, this chivalric code is defined by the twin virtues of “loyalty” and “righteousness” (Qi, 2011). Thus, the liminality of the protagonists of The Water Margin is deeply tied to their avocation of chivalry. As we will discuss below, the chivalric hero is characterized by problematic violence. Qi points out that this violence derives from the way in which the chivalric hero is set at counter-purposes to the corrupt society around him. As Qi observes, “the Liangshan World [i.e., the world of The Water Margin] is by no means an underworld organization that bullies the weak and seeks wealth to kill” because it exists in contrast to a corrupt society that does bully and seek wealth (92). These martial protagonists are fantasy figures who stand against society and insist on creating their own world. This is going to be a common theme in Chinese martial arts fiction; for all that these protagonists seem to long for society, they are constantly set against it. There is a paradox at play here. As Gregory notes, “As high-ranking officials and influential men of letters, [the original publishers of The Water Margin] were at the center of the Jiajing political and literary worlds. Yet the book they admired, The Water Margin, was a tale of outlaws at the margins of society” (Gregory, 2023). Gregory’s book is a study of the print history of The Water Margin, but he identifies here an interesting paradox at the heart of Chinese martial heroes, in whatever incarnation they take. These are universally marginalized figures, but until the advent of web fiction, they have been celebrated and written about largely by people in the center.

Jin Yong (1924–2018) is one of the most famous writers of wuxia fiction in China. The Water Margin and the equally influential Romance of the Three Kingdoms are, in some ways, the cornerstone of long-form Chinese fiction, a form that (as Scott Gregory notes) “could be endlessly reshaped and repackaged” (Gregory, 2023). If this is the case, then Jin Yong is the solidifier of martial fiction for the modern age. Wuxia fiction takes place in a quasi-utopian space, and its protagonists move within it, alternately demolishing anti-utopias and constructing utopias. Ann Huss and Jianmei Liu have edited a valuable collection of criticism titled The Jin Yong Phenomenon: Chinese Martial Arts Fiction and Modern Chinese Literary History, many articles from which will be cited below. The world of the martial arts novel is, in the words of Xiaofei Tian, “a fantastic special and temporal structure” (Tian, 2007). This is the world of jianghu, of rivers and lakes, where the martial protagonists perform their feats. According to Wiejie Song, the early versions of this jianghu were utopias, but by the time of Jin Yong they had developed into “a combination of utopias and anti-utopias” (Song, 2007). Whereas the outlaws of the titular Water Margin create a world apart for themselves, the protagonists of Jin Yong novels must find their utopias and anti-utopias in relation to themselves. Thus, jianghu is transformed, in Song’s words, into “a 'political allegory' symbolizing the logic of power strife” (Song, 2007). Here “allegory” is not intended in a simple sense; though Jin Yong certainly allowed reflections of contemporary society in his initial publications, his subsequent revisions of the novels tended to move away from pure allegory (Li, 2007). The allegory here should thus be thought of in terms of broad reflection rather than direct symbolism. As Song puts it, “[m]artial arts fiction, among other utopian genres, is not merely a supplement to the political theory, but rather provides a relatively independent construction” (Song, 2007). What Jin Yong offers—in a tradition continuing into contemporary xianxia novels—is a model by which his protagonists, and therefore his readers, might find a way to exist in the world around them.

The characters in Jin Yong’s fiction are characterized by adherence to a chivalric code. Zhou Yuanhe says of the protagonists of The Legend of the Condor Heroes, “[t]he chivalrous spirit in chivalrous individuals will inevitably lead them to help others solve difficulties and resolve disputes. Between interests and righteousness, they will decisively choose righteousness, even if they sacrifice their lives for righteousness” (Zhou, 2018). Zhou argues that “[t]he spirit of chivalry is the core of martial arts novels, and martial arts novels are the carrier of Chinese chivalry” (Zhou, 2018). As with The Water Margin, the importance of these chivalric heroes rests in social circumstances, since “[t]he country is facing internal and external difficulties, and the people hope to have great heroes who care about people’s livelihood and take the rise and fall of the world as their own responsibility to help them” (Zhou, 2018). However, Jin Yong offers a significant difference: whereas the utopian space offered by the outlaws of the marsh is largely topographic (the water margin), in Jin Yong the utopian space is relational.

Just as the protagonists of The Water Margin reflect both the times they are set in and the interests of their readers, so the novels of Jin Yong do a kind of double duty. In Side Story of Fox Volant, the protagonist Hu Fei (the titular Fox Volant) values righteousness over profit. Jin Yong’s own words attest to the importance of chivalry to his characters in his creative manifesto for Feihu Waizhuan (Jin, 2008). Hu Fei is a Confucian knight with exceptionally high standards. Such protagonists offer an idealized space for the readers' imaginations. Weijie Song locates in the Jin Yong hero a utopian drive, particularly in “the strengthening and expansion of individual competence. It is a heroic reverie, a possibility that the individual can transcend reality” (Song, 2007). In Water Margin, the feats may be extravagant, but they remain rooted, more or less, in the world of the possible. By the time of Jin Yong, characters are performing impossible acts that nevertheless fit within the philosophical world of the genre, as T.L. Tsim observes in the Foreword to the English translation of Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain (Tsim, 1996). Thus, by the time the martial genre had developed into the wuxia novels of Jin Yong, there was already a latent thread of fantasy that would be characteristic of the xianxia novels of the early 21st Century.

Jin Yong’s novels developed the themes of the old-school martial arts novels of the Republic of China. Part of this development involves problematizing the ideal world of rivers and lakes. Martial arts novels may seem to take place in a romantic and beautiful world, but in reality, they are “a society that only speaks of violence and does not speak of the law” (Chen 11). This characteristic elevation of power over legality means that Jin Yong’s martial arts world is marked by danger, cruelty, and cunning. Hu Fei and Zhong Sisao in Side Story of Fox Volant are facing this world. Hu Fei, who possesses exceptional skills, resorts to violence, while Zhong Sisao either swallows her anger or vainly struggles against her conditions. These transcending heroes are often drawn from “the repressed strata” (Song, 2007). In their heroism, Jin Yong’s heroes display something like superhuman abilities. Therefore, Chen Shixiang believes that Jin Yong’s novel “is a world full of maggots, ghosts, and poor people” (Chen, 2020). Jin Yong's protagonists emerge from among the weak and fight for justice, as seen in characters such as Hu Fei. This is a development of the kind of thing seen in The Water Margin; in the older book, the protagonists escape from society and form a counter-society; in Jin Yong, their counter-society is often found in relations between characters rather than in a specific place.

The utopian relations between these characters are rooted in a common gallantry. Among the stories contained in Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain is the account of a brawl between two chivalric heroes, Phoenix and Gully. Their conflict is rooted in a generations-long dispute between their clans. The brawl itself continues for several days, until finally Gully is defeated and dies. What is remarkable about this conflict is the cordiality between the two warriors. Gully’s wife prepares a generous meal each day of the fight, and the two warriors eat together between rounds. They even decide, one night, to share a bed and discuss matters of the chivalric world, an encounter that includes Phoenix exclaiming, “If only you had not borne the family name Hu, or rather, if only I had not had Miao as my surname, a deep friendship would certainly have cemented the two of us, inspiring us also to share each other’s fate” (Jin, 1996). Jin Yong here presents these heroes as irrevocably doomed to conflict by the past and yet equally bound to a code that transcends that conflict. If utopianism exists here, it is within the gallant bond shared by these two competing heroes rather than in any sort of counter-world such as that found in The Water Margin. With the web-based xianxia novel, we see a return to the idea of constructing a counter-community. However, these novels blend the older literary tradition with the innovations of Jin Yong to produce something distinct to contemporary China.

The Xianxia protagonist

The expression xia continues to be used today. It not only appears in the two concepts of wuxia and xianxia but also in the Chinese translations of some American films, such as “Gangtie Xia” (Iron Man) and “Zhizhu Xia” (Spider-Man). Luo Liqun posits that the deeds of fairies and heroes in Chinese mythology represent the earliest manifestation of the Chinese spirit of chivalry (Luo, 2009). It can be said that Chinese mythology features more solitary xia rather than heroes who lead groups and seek to achieve great deeds. Furthermore, from a class perspective, the xia originated from the lowest stratum of the ancient nobility, just above commoners, making them more populist compared to the ruling-class heroes. Consequently, the stories of xia have a broad audience among the general populace. However, the xia found in the online xianxia novel is very different from his forebears. Whereas the protagonist of a wuxia novel is altruistic, the protagonist of a xianxia novel is principally self-interested, and his altruism is limited to those in his immediate circle. However, in all other respects, he follows the tradition: in his solitude, his extraordinary abilities, and his common origin.

Xianxia could thus be said to be the modern ironic manifestation of the wuxia adventures popularized by Jin Yong. This statement may seem controversial to some readers; however, a moment’s consideration will show that this is the case. While Jin Yong’s novels are historically based and exist within the realm of the possible, they (and the numerous films based on them) nevertheless created an esthetic world that exists apart from their nominal historical settings. Xianxia novels adopt this aesthetic, along with the character types associated with it, and create new stories within it. These stories rely on stereotyped characters or situations. In the xianxia novel, the protagonist often develops from an ordinary teenager, experiencing different challenges and hardships until he becomes overwhelmingly powerful. In The Coiling Dragon, the protagonist, Lin Lei unintentionally picks up a magic ring and then embarks on a magical journey. Lin Lei travels from the material plane of the Yulan Continent to the battlefield of Hell, one of the four high planes. Along the way, he faces challenges and constantly improves his magic accomplishments. This broad sweep is typical of the genre. Stellar Transformations takes the huge world of cultivation as the background. Qin Yu, the protagonist, overcomes his inherent weaknesses and eventually becomes the supreme being in the universe. These worlds here are more fantastic than they are in traditional wuxia fiction; the protagonists are often cultivators, that is, people who develop their inner qi energy in such a way as to perform magical feats. The basis for this protagonist is still Taoism, but it is a Taoism more or less wholly divorced from the rites and practices of traditional Taoists. Just as in the wuxia novels, the xianxia protagonist must learn his skills. However, a far greater emphasis is placed on the process of learning. The development could be compared to that of a video game character, in which the primary mechanism is one of leveling up. This development is enabled by the world around the protagonist. Through the construction of the imaginary space, the novel creates a virtual place and time that is detached from the world.

This model is sturdy enough to apply to numerous xianxia novels; for our purpose, we will be examining I Shall Seal the Heavens by Er Gen as a novel that is both readily accessible to Anglophone readers and fairly typical of the kinds of productions found within the genre. These are not short books. I Shall Seal the Heavens began publication in 2014 and ran for a total of 1613 installments. Its English translation takes up ten volumes in print. Its protagonist, Meng Hao, begins the novel as a poor scholar who is kidnapped by the Reliance Sect to replenish their stock of disciples. Here can be seen the continuity within Chinese popular fiction. Just as the protagonist of a Jin Yong novel is often of “the repressed strata” who finds himself in the world of martial arts (Song, 2007), so the xianxia protagonist begins as a nobody. This is the case with Meng Hao. Though he initially has no powers, over the course of the narrative, he grows and acquires them—partially by luck and partially by his own cunning. Eventually, he becomes so powerful that he is able to destroy planets and (as the title suggests) seal the heavens. By the end of the novel, he is teleporting between planets with ease; he has suffered a death and a rebirth. He is, in multiple sense of the word, an Immortal. However, his overwhelming success is not rooted in a rejection of his world. Rather, he begins his journey by conforming to the society around him and finding ways to manipulate it to his own advantage. This adaptation is the key difference that sets him apart from his literary forebears.

The web fiction protagonist exists in a world of violence just as much as the Jin Yong hero. Observers of the form, both scholarly and nonacademic, have explored why this violence exists. Jeremy Bai, who under the name of “Deathblade” translated I Shall Seal the Heavens for WuxiaWorld, has suggested that a primary cause of the bloodshed in web novels is cultural, that Chinese readers simply have a different understanding of the value of life (Bai, 2020). Bai’s argument is problematic in that it emphasizes China as a location that is totally foreign to Western readers. Bai offers an Othering discourse that scholars would do well to push against. Some critics have attempted more complex interpretations of the dynamics of character in these novels. Rachel Cheung, in her entry on Web Fiction in the Paper Republic Guide to Contemporary Chinese Literature, notes that the protagonists of these web novels function as a power fantasy as they “easily overcomes all obstacles, accumulates great wealth and defeats all enemies—ideally by humiliating their adversaries in the process” (Cheung, 2022). The idea of the xianxia protagonist as wish-fulfillment is promising and deserves closer attention. Reading this fiction in light of social circumstances gives it an unexpected heft. Readers, faced with difficulties in their own lives, identify with these protagonists. The brutality of Meng Hao in I Shall Seal the Heavens allows readers to engage in wish-fulfillment as they watch their hero effortlessly demonstrate his own exceptional nature. Once again, this wish-fulfillment is not unique to web fiction. The novels of Jin Yong are often interpreted (favorably) as wish-fulfillment. As Wiejie Song argues, “[t]he reader’s body is transformed into a the knights-errant’s body. The dream of becoming a hero is realized through the reader's identification with the main characters. It is the fantasized and lost self that is attained in the readers' emerging self” (Song, 2007). Readers of xianxia web fiction perform precisely the same process.

The belief that society is hyper-competitive is reflected in the cutthroat world of the xianxia story. Megan Walsh grounds her analysis of web fiction on the economic changes that have overtaken China in the last several decades. Walsh argues that the situation of young people in China is tenuous and vexed as they are expected to be hyper-productive and to enter the market (Walsh, 2022). The survival-of-the-fittest motif thus can be read as reflecting contemporary conditions. In a 2018 article, Elliott Zaagman outlines what he calls “the Huawei Way.” In this article, Zaagman describes the work culture at Huawei—the famous Chinese telecommunications company—as characterized by a highly competitive “wolf culture” (Zaagman, 2018). The recent phenomenon of “lying flat”— that is, of opting out of the demand to be productive, a trend most clearly seen among young people—is in direct response to both this sort of hyper-competitive culture and other demands such as Jack Ma’s famous demand that workers should labor from nine AM to nine PM six days a week, a practice known as 996 (Davidovic, 2022). With the increasing demands of productivity and the rapidly approaching retirement of a large number of workers, young people particularly feel pressured to either over-perform at their jobs or opt-out entirely.

Though I Shall Seal the Heavens was begun in 2014, and so before Western attention turned to Huawei and related work-environments, the cultivation world of the novel is remarkably similar to the high-powered world of Huawei. In this setting, cultivators fight against each other for meager benefits—pills that will allow them a small amount of progress in their cultivation activities. The novel’s protagonist, Meng Hao, observes that the sect operates according to “the law of the jungle” (Er, 2020). Early in his time in the sect, Meng Hao witnesses a student being robbed by other members of the sect (Er, 2020). This world of cultivation sects is undeniably brutal, but it can be read as an exaggerated version of the competition young people expect every day when entering the workforce. The question that faces Meng Hao, much like the one facing his audience, is how to survive in such a world. He must balance his own individual identity and desire for human relationships against the crushing, dehumanizing cultivation world.

If the protagonists of The Water Margin, and to a lesser extent, the novels of Jin Yong, are revolutionary, those of the xianxia are anything but. The xianxia protagonist gains mastery, not by rejecting the system, but by finding a way to manage it. In I Shall Seal the Heavens, Meng Hao is not at first a powerful person; instead, he is a scholar who is kidnapped by the sect and has no real abilities. Thus, like the protagonists of Jin Yong novels, Meng Hao is a member of an underclass. Cheung suggests a close connection between fantasy and reality, arguing that “[xianxia] stories of- ten expose issues that are prevalent in contemporary Chinese society […] yet instead of offering any meaningful critique, protagonists often overcome them by beating the culprit at their own game, having better connections or gaining more power” (Cheung, 2022). Such is possibly the case in I Shall Seal the Heavens. Far from being a strong man, at first, Meng Hao is more like Sun Wukong, the trickster protagonist of Journey to the West. In these early levels of cultivation, Meng Hao is not the amoral, bloodthirsty figure that Jeremy Bai describes. His reliance on cleverness distinguishes him from the protagonist of a Jin Yong novel: rather than holding to a code of chivalry, Meng Hao observes the world around him and adapts to it.

These stories are narratives of growth, and so might profitably be read in conversation with Franco Moretti’s concept of the Bildungsroman. This puts them in marked contrast to the novels of Jin Yong, in which growth is not a focus. For Moretti, the novel development is about the ways in which the protagonist is integrated into his society (Moretti, 1987). The Bildungsroman is based on a conflict between the modern industrial capitalist demand to fit in with the equally modern claim that the individual is absolutely unique (Moretti, 1987). The Bildungsroman for Moretti dramatizes the process whereby the protagonist matures into a position of accepting his society. It would be possible to join Cheung in suggesting that the process of development in the xianxia is one of cooperation; the protagonist is not seeking to change society but to become more accommodating to it. However, unlike Moretti’s Bildungsroman protagonist—and in contrast to Cheung’s assertions—protagonists like Meng Hao do not simply accommodate themselves to the surrounding society as a way of integrating (that is, their maturity is not tied to their skill at joining the world around them). Rather, the protagonist of the xianxia works within the society around him in order to create a counter-society, an alternative utopian cluster within the larger dystopian reality.

The protagonist of I Shall Seal the Heavens is distinctly modern in a way that the protagonists of The Water Margin or of a Jin Yong novel are not. Unlike traditional heroes, Meng Hao’s approach to life is thoroughly commercial; he advances, not by devotion to his studies, but through cunning. As Meng Hao becomes familiar with the rules of the society in which he finds himself, he finds ways to survive within it despite his lack of martial ability. Rather than fight other students for the precious cultivation pills, he sets up a “Pill Cultivation Workshop Outlet” (Er, 2020). He purchases a batch of cultivation pills and then goes to a place where other cultivators gather to fight. Once there, he sells pills to the combatants at exorbitant amounts, thus increasing his stock of other items necessary for his own cultivation. This market-based approach to cultivation is a novelty within the world of the novel, but it gives him an edge. Meng Hao comments to himself that selling pills “is much faster than robbing people. It’s also much safer, and there’s no need for killing” (Er, 2020). Meng Hao is a trickster, not a chivalric figure.

This wiliness sets Meng Hao at odds with characters who fit the more traditional mold of wuxia heroes. Indeed, one way to read I Shall Seal the Heavens and other books like it is as an ironic response to traditional Chinese popular literature. One antagonist, Wang Tengfei, represents a traditional Chinese hero. Wang Tengfei is the top disciple of the sect. The description of him in the novel emphasizes his beauty and his grace (these being, generically, symbols of highly advanced cultivation skill). Wang Tengfei has been a high-ranking member of the sect for some time and was well-regarded before he joined (82). So high is his level of cultivation that he floats rather than walks (Er, 2020). So advanced and honored is he that his promotion in the sect is already assured (Er, 2020). In all of this, Wang Tengfei seems to fit the model of a wuxia hero. However, he is revealed to be working for his own interests: he is looking for a particular relic that has been lost in the region. In truth, he does not care about anything except his own advancement.

Meng Hao offers a retort to this traditional hero. When he first encounters Wang Tengfei, he is hyper-aware of the difference between them, since “he couldn’t compare to Wang Tengfei in any way. He [Meng Hao] was frail and swarthy and was not attractive.” (Er, 2020). However, as he cultivates his skills, he become more powerful as well as more attractive (Er, 2020). While Wang Tengfei arrives at the sect already accomplished, Meng Hao is in every way a self-made man. Their conflict, coming early in Meng Hao’s training, illustrates a competition between traditional wuxia and contemporary xianxia. During a fight with Wang Tengfei, Meng Hao produces a sword that he has acquired by chance and then duplicated—with great cost—using a magic mirror. The narrator describes the difference between the characters' perspective, observing that “[t]o Wang Tengfei, it was a precious treasure, but to Meng Hao, it was the embodiment of two thousand spirit stones” (Er, 2020). The contrast in perspective is also a contrast in genre; the wuxia hero values the sword for its own sake, while Meng Hao values it for its cost. This is consistent throughout the early part of I Shall Seal the Heavens. If treasures fall into Meng Hao’s lap, as in the case of the magic sword, he quickly interprets them in terms of cost. Er Gen thus stages a cultural conflict between a traditional wuxia hero (envisioned here as entitled and self-seeking) and a member of the hustle culture that many of Er Gen’s readers will recognize (no less self-seeking, perhaps, but also more cunning and profit-oriented). Ultimately, Wang Tengfei is defeated in part because he cannot see the cost of the magic sword; his traditional heroism is finally a weakness in the world of the novel.

Meng Hao is successful because he sees the world in terms of cost. If the jianghu world of Jin Yong is a competing mesh of utopias and anti-utopias, rooted in an interpersonal code of chivalry, the world of I Shall Seal the Heavens is decidedly dystopian. The violent nature of the Reliance Sect is attributed to its decline (Er, 2020). That is to say, the violent and hyper-competitive world of I Shall Seal the Heavens is not seen as the natural way of things; it is the result of the sect’s own abandonment of fundamental principles (Er, 2020). The world has not declined because it has become more competitive; quite the reverse, in fact: Er Gen seems to be arguing that the society of I Shall Seal the Heavens has abandoned traditional modes of life in favor of reliance on luck and commerce precisely because it has declined. This perspective is striking and suggests one way in which scholars can approach this material with an eye to understanding the attitudes of, if not readers of web fiction, at least the creators of it. Walsh and Cheung, quoted above, both suggest that protagonists like Meng Hao are essentially accommodationists. However, this interpretation may be too simple. The response is not simply to get along with the way things are; it is to create a counter-community within that world. Er Gen presents a xianxia protagonist for contemporary society. With no margins left to flee to, Meng Hao creates a margin of his own and finds a way to live alongside and within his world.

By ironically re-reading the wuxia novel in light of contemporary society, authors of xianxia fiction rejuvenate the form and make it accessible to modern readers. Beyond social factors, the violence of xianxia protagonists seems to be rooted in a generic tradition involving marginal figures. Just as the protagonists of The Water Margin form their own counter-society, so Meng Hao creates a supportive clique around himself. Er Gen seems to argue that this is the true nature of cultivation. The sect in which Meng Hao finds himself is called the Reliance Sect, and at one point, he realizes the meaning of its name, that “[p]eople are supposed to find someone to rely on. Once they do, they will be rich, powerful and free from worry” (Er, 2020). In his early days in the sect, Meng Hao only worries about survival; however, once he forms his small group of connections, he begins to care for something else. Indeed, the novel is careful to point out that the first time Meng Hao feels bloodlust is after seeing a friend attacked (Er, 2020). Though self-interest is an important aspect of the protagonist’s nature, it is not the only motivation. This, again, sets Meng Hao apart from his antagonist Wang Tengfei; his goal is not only to become more powerful but to become more powerful in order to protect his friends. Here the violence is explicitly tied to the fact of living in a violent society.

Er Gen seems to be making the argument that heroes like Meng Hao—that is, heroes who, in the end, may be indistinguishable from villains—arise because they are forced to arise. Meng Hao is violent, not because of his nature (that is, contra Jeremy Bai, there is no innate Chinese cultural disposition toward violence) but because the world around him is violent and he must adapt to it. Such a reading is consonant with much of Chinese history. Far from being a simple response to contemporary problems or some indication of a deep cultural malaise, the problem of violence in xianxia literature can be profitably read as part of a long tradition of Chinese writing about marginalized people. On one level, this is blatantly a power fantasy for the readers, who generally would be expected to be either college students or office workers—and so to live relatively powerless, regimented lives. On the other hand, if this is a power fantasy, it is one with a respectable pedigree: The Water Margin, often regarded as the progenitor of wuxia fiction, and, therefore, of xianxia fiction, shows a clear preference for rebels and counter-cultural figures. So, too, does Journey to the West with its anarchic figure of Sun Wukong. This pattern shows a recognition that the struggle for power is often inevitable in a society predicated on power. Suffering and unequally distributed power are the root causes of violence. In a society where power is arbitrarily distributed, individuals must have power to escape suffering, and power must be seized and maintained through violence.

And yet, the struggle faced by Meng Hao and others like him is not simply for power in itself; they seek the power to create a more just counter-society for themselves and their companions. These characters form a paradoxical antisocial society with the misunderstood and rejected protagonist at their center. They are Romantic heroes who act based on their own sense of right and wrong in the face of the world around them. The routine way in which web fiction pits protagonists against their society is, thus, worth exploring. Meng Hao is pitted against the community, as are other xianxia protagonists. They are rebels who assert themselves against the small-minded and devious people around them, and eventually, they triumph and establish their dominance. Like the martial heroes of jianghu, these xianxia protagonists are Romantic heroes who assert their will-to-power over the world around them and (sometimes literally) remake it in their own image. Meng Hao gathers friends and allies to himself and, although there is never a question that he is the most powerful of them, he is able to establish and remake the world in his own image for their benefit as well as his own. They create a different kind of community in which they can flourish within or just outside of a hostile society (that is to say, on its, on the margins). The response of these characters to their world is to form their own counter-communities.

Conclusion

None of this is to suggest that web-based xianxia should be read as a simple allegory of contemporary China. As John Cawelti observes of Western popular entertainment, it is a difficult thing to derive audience politics from the popular fiction they consume (Cawelti, 1977). Audience engagement with the genre is rarely straightforward. There is an element of play in identifying with such a trickster figure as Meng Hao. Megan Walsh argues that readers are not unironically identifying with these characters. Rather, they are reading with tongues firmly in cheek, enjoying the excess without seeing it as an aspirational model (Walsh, 2022). Just as the earlier readers of The Water Margin turned to these violent tales for entertainment rather than moral instruction, so modern readers seek escape rather than a model for life. If a reader likes violent, bloody stories with infantile protagonists, they do not necessarily want to be an infantile mass murderer. The genre is, however, undeniably in conversation with the daily experiences of audiences. It expresses cultural anxieties that pervade the daily life of readers. The symbol of this anxiety is violence. Violence is forced upon the protagonists; it is not innate to them. Meng Hao is not initially violent. He is a cunning person, to be sure, and he relies upon his cunning to get an advantage over the more violent members of the sect.

The protagonists of Chinese web-based xianxia fiction represent an important development in the history of Chinese literature. Though our focus here has been one example, numerous other instances could be adduced, from Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation to Faraway Wanderers, both of which have been adapted into successful TV dramas. Rather than being simple wish-fulfillment characters, these protagonists are expansions of figures found in the writings of authors like Jin Yong. Er Gen and others like him ironically re-read the traditional martial hero to provide readers with both a power fantasy and a reflection of their own anxieties and struggles. These protagonists live in a violent society and exhibit problematically violent tendencies in their own right. Though some observers seem to think of this tendency as troubling, close attention to the genealogy of the Chinese martial heroes demonstrates that these authors are applying older patterns to contemporary concerns. This fact makes Chinese web fiction a valuable resource for scholars seeking to understand both Chinese literature and contemporary Chinese culture.