The authors and creators of donghua
The pioneer of online xianxiaBorn in 1976 in Fujian, Zhang Jian, known as Xiao Ding, is the author of Zhu Xian (Jade Dynasty), one of the founding novels of Chinese online literature.
Career
In the early 2000s, Zhang Jian published Zhu Xian (诛仙) on Huanjian Shumeng, one of the first big Chinese online literature sites, where Tang Jia San also started. The story of Zhang Xiaofan, a village boy caught between a righteous sect and the demonic path, became a phenomenon.
The novel was soon cited among the great classics of the first generation of web fiction, alongside Piaomiao Zhi Lü (飘邈之旅) and Xiaobing Chuanqi (小兵传奇). It was published in print, then adapted into an online game, a TV series, a film and a donghua.
Xiao Ding is today one of China Literature's "great master" authors, and Zhu Xian remains his signature work.
Style and themes
Xiao Ding has a more literary pen than most of his contemporaries: polished sentences, poetic images, restrained emotion. Zhu Xian is as much a romantic tragedy as a cultivation novel, carried by the triangle between Zhang Xiaofan, Lu Xueqi and Bi Yao, and by a reflection on the line between good and evil.
Their works on Donghua Fan
The donghua adapted from Xiao Ding's novels, with their guides, characters and watch orders.
Trivia
- Zhu Xian opens with a quotation from the Daodejing: "Heaven and Earth are not benevolent; they treat the ten thousand things as straw dogs."
- The novel was adapted into a series in 2016 (Noble Aspirations, with Li Yifeng and Zhao Liying) and a film in 2019 (Jade Dynasty, with Xiao Zhan).
- The online game Zhu Xian, launched in 2007, was one of the big Chinese MMORPG hits.
Donghua Fan's take
Xiao Ding showed very early that web fiction could move readers. Zhu Xian has aged in places, but Zhang Xiaofan's melancholy and Bi Yao's scene remain among the genre's finest.
— Spidermas, for Donghua Fan