Xuanhuan and The Rise of The Chinese Web Novel Industry

If you have watched a donghua, read a Chinese web novel or a manhua you are likely to have stumbled into the xuanhuan genre. What is this genre all about? What are the origins for its boom in China? are the questions I will be answering this time. 

To begin with we need to start with the emergence of the internet in China. Internet made its way to China in the 90s and whilst it was limited to universities and research institutes but soon after it spread to the wider populace.  What became prominent in these early years of the internet were simple forums that allowed people of all sorts of interests to converge together and talk about their interests. Nowadays forums might seem antiquated because of the sheer amount of real time communication applications like Discord and the likes but in a period where data transfer and processing were primitive, simple yet practical forums were where the public space people went to exchange ideas.

This development was aided in the 90s by the opening up of China which was in many ways a period that people experienced very differently. Films and other forms of entertainment became less regulated as a wave of liberalization and acceptance of capitalistic principles of inciting profit seeking in a turn towards a policy resembling the New Economic Policy followed in the early 1920s in the Soviet Union. However, when it came to entertainment television was still the dominant force, but there was a brooding space for literature in the new and expanding internet space, and this was boosted by the fact China did not have a thriving print literature market because of rampant piracy and the bureaucratic processes involved in the publishing business. Hence, people turned to web literature because it was a new space that allowed people to explore all kinds of literature.

Web literature first sprouted in the internet in the mid 90s via online journals like Hua Zhao that published electronic magazines with stories by contributors. However, it also thrived in the form of forums, one notable one that still exists being xys. In these forums, a person would create a thread and share their writings and people in the form of replies would respond to their writing. Active engagement between the writer and the readers was a key part of the web literature and commercial sites Qidian still try to replicate this through comment sections.   

One forum-like website for web literature that would stand out from the rest in the late 90s was Banyan Tree or Rongshu, it provided a clearer interface with the same features of other forums. But what really made Banyan Tree stand out was a certain number of stories that managed to draw  a large amount of readers for the site. One of those stories was Date with Death by Lu Youqing, a diary of the author's struggle with terminal cancer. Lu Youqing's writings gained a lot of followers and his engagement with his readers did mean they felt deeply attracted to his story.

 and the courageous yet pitiful nature of his tale 

In August 2000, he wrote the last entry to his diary as he felt his body could no longer withstand it. Not long prior to this he had a brief television appearance in which he expressed his joy in writing and the warm response of his readers. Two months after his last diary entry, he died and the news of his death garnered a lot of attention, even appearing in western news sites at the time. His diary would eventually receive a printed version with the Chinese name ‘Sheng Ming de Xinyan.’ 

Another word that could be said to be foundational to web literature expansion in the 90s is the writings of Chen Cun, an established and prominent print author that became an enthusiast of web literature. He actively contributed to Banyan Tree and was even a forum administrator through the 90s which helped the site garner the attention it did.  In the 2000s eventually Chen Cun established a platform after he left Banyan Tree.   

The 90s and early 2000s were significant periods of development of web literature, especially after the liberalization had led to a collapse of expansive avant-garde printed literature journals and magazines that were not profitable. The lower barrier of entry and democratic nature of web literature were helped by the increasing expansion of the internet in China and the way more and more users swarmed sites like Banyan Tree to read and share their works.

Watching this growth of web literature sharing, a group of fans of xuanhuan (eastern fantasy) that shared their own stories amongst each other decided to make a platform strictly for xuanhuan stories. As a result, the website Xuanhuan Wenxue Xiehui or CMFU.net - short for Chinese Magic Fantasy Union in 2001 was created. This platform would eventually become the massively popular Qidian but to begin with it was a forum exclusive for sharing xuanhuan works until in 2002 it started accepting works from other genres as well. 

CMFU rapidly attracted a lot of writers eager to share their xuanhuan works in the newly established platform which went hand in hand with an increasing number of readers. A natural consequence of the expanding community of writers and readers of online literature was that it started to be seen as an opportunity for a profitable business. Following that line, CMFU had also to take on a more professional appearance, so reformed its platform and moved away from its forum like appearance in 2003, to instead have a more clear user friendly interface. Alongside this visual overall there was a change in domain to CMFU.com, and a new logo which featured Qidian (起點). This huge transformation brought along VIP membership and fees for readers to read the latest chapters of the most popular works like Jade Dynasty but also others like Mercenaries Under The Sky, Purple River and many others.

The successful transition to a commercial business with great potential attracted the interest of Shanda, a large conglomerate that bought out CFMU in 2004. The popularity of the website continued to expand and it was a prominent feature in Alexa ranking of most visited websites both in China and Worldwide. CFMU did not change the website but it did start a great marketisation of the web literature as they had also bought Banyan Tree not long before. Response from readers to the introduction of a paywall did not drive people away since paid chapters could be bought with what is equivalent to pennies. However, the marketisation of web novels did have a huge impact on the writers as the large number of readers meant a lot of money could be made by writers, thus giving authors of web novels that became popular the chance to become full time writers. These developments naturally were not missed by readers and authors alike as the riches that could be made from it attracted many readers to try their hand at writing their own stories as well and not just in the xuanhuan genres but in others as well. Consequently, CMFU gained a large stream of various new works that helped boost its catalog, as a result by the end of the decade web novel was solidified as profitable business, and competitors started to emerge as well, and in partial response to that CMFU sought to solidity its brand by switching its name to simply Qidian (起点).

For fans of 3D donghua and webnovels, series like Soul Land, Coiling Dragon, Battle Through The Heavens, Record of a Mortal Journey to Immortality all originated at around this period of Qidian. What these series all have in common is that they are xuanhuan or xianxia which in part due to Qidian origin make up for most of the novels in the site. All these series achieved higher levels of popularity than novels before as the literature business gained more visibility as a result of how profitable it could be for both corporations and authors. 

But why was this genre proving to be so popular? Xuanhuan is quite a flexible genre; it can include eastern ideas of buddhism, taoism but also western magic or science fiction. Stories usually tap into a lot of Chinese folklore but mix it with various other elements to create an interesting setting. So whilst the world feels familiar to many Chinese fans in a similar way that isekai borrows the world of JRPG stories, at the same time it has various elements on top of it to transform it into something a bit more distinct. However, it was not just xuanhuan novels that dominated the web novel space, there were many other genres. 

Competitors of Qidian drew out a page of its monetization style, notable ones like Faloo and Zongheng that emerged in late 2000s had to craft a place for themselves by enticing authors to write in their platforms often by providing better terms for writers. Over time these platforms managed to become successful but they still stand behind Qidian.

Faloo and Zongheng are similar to Qidian, but there are other platforms that do differ significantly in their targeted audience.  For instance Jinjiang or jjwxc marketed itself to female readers and that was why BL stories but also genres such as drama romance stories that appeal to female audiences are the most prominent. In sites like SFACG or SF Qing Xiao Shuo which as the title suggests focuses on ACG inspired stories, many of which are inspired by Japanese light novels. Naturally, this means it is marketed to a growing fanbase of ACG in China.

A similar platform in terms of content to SFACG is Ciweimao, but Instead of a focus on a website platform, Ciweimao is exclusively a mobile application and albeit a recent platform it has found a lot of success. On both platforms, xuanhuan is popular but the story telling and style can be quite different because of the influence of ACG. Other notable genres include fanfiction, school life and urban stories . So these platforms do differ quite in terms of marketing strategy and content from Qidian and others like Faloo. 

A genre that I have avoided mentioning until now is xianxia because it is closely related to xuanhuan, but it has proven to be one of the most popular genres in web novel platforms. Xianxia started off as a subset of xuanhuan that explored taoist fantasy elements such as cultivation to immortality with inspiration from the traditional wuxia genre as well. 

We have looked at many factors to the rise of web literature and xuanhuan to the top of the industry. But now we should touch on why xuanhuan has this large audience. Xuanhuan’s popularity and Xianxia as well have much to do with a renewed interest in Taoism and Chinese classical culture in China in the twenty first century, after tough periods of persecution in the twentieth century. Part of this comes from a top down yet at the same time grassroots movement of growing Chinese nationalism that has led to a greater appreciation of China’s own philosophical ideas. For instance, Kong Zi or Confucius, who was staunchly beaten down in China in the twentieth century, has recovered the status of a respectable part of Chinese culture alongside other ancient Chinese poets, writers.

However, I do think there is another and bigger aspect that makes these series successful, aside from the familiarity to Chinese readers the setting provides, and that is obviously availability. Easy access via the internet with a low or even at no cost establishes a low barrier of entry to the massive audience of over five hundred million internet users and increasing that China currently has. However, another key factor apart from availability is that they do act as escapist fantasies and to a large extent this also applies to the urban genre which is another big genre in Chinese web novel platforms. 

A word that has been associated with many genres of novels in China is yiyin or YY which can be loosely translated as lust of the mind. It does not really refer to any sort of sexual content but in regards to a crowd pleasing style of writing. This can be shown in Xuanhuan with how main characters in these stories usually can become ridiculously strong and always find ways to subvert their enemies, and at the same time garner the attraction of multiple female characters at least in many series. For example, popular series like Battle Through The Heavens, Soul Land and others share some of these characteristics, their narratives are singularly focused on the main character, who are strong or have some sort of trait or items that give them absurd potential to become powerful. Consequently, they can overcome any obstacle that comes their way. 

The simple nature of a singular narrative that just follows the main character makes it simpler for audiences to assimilate themselves with him or her. Additionally, the tilted balance to the side of the main character makes these series 'feel good' stories because even if there is adversity, it is always built up in a way that just boosts expectations of the time they are defeated. The narrative is predictable, which is not a downside because it allows readers to live through a fantasy where the main character is able to satisfy all his desires. One might call this sort of story ‘power fantasy’ but it is not about power or dominance, it is instead about immersion in a fantasy world and knowing beforehand that the main character's journey will be successful, despite adversity the main character will come out victorious. Its popularity that spread to the west as well through fan translation shows that people are in a pursuit of a sense of safety in works that will give them what they want.

Of course, these elements are not exclusive to xuanhuan, in fact they are present in many web novels of other genres like BL and even novels that are not Chinese in origin like isekai stories albeit not in the way. YY or Yiyin is an interesting concept that can be used to analyze many forms of media. Nevertheless, these elements all explain the way xuanhuan became a major literature genre within China's web. Recognizing the mass appeal of these series, and the increasing market for comics, animation and games. Shanda Literature and Tencent partnered and created a new company named China Literature that would handle the media mix  ambitions and project licensing of novels from Qidian. This led to the creation of more comics adaptations but also animation of popular web novels like Soul Land, Battle Through the Heavens and many others. To no one's surprise most of them have been popular, and the large amount of popular novels to adapt means there are a lot of them which does give an image that donghua are only cultivation series, but that is an incorrect view. 

I hope I was able to give an idea of what xuanhuan is and why there are many series in this genre in manhua and donghua.