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Which Chinese novels did you like? Were they "real" novels, written by a professional author to be sold in bookstores, or just amateur webfiction? Because all I've ever seen coming out of mainland China is the latter. And I'm not a total snob, I do sometimes enjoy webfiction, but the all the Chinese stuff I've seen has just been garbage. Endless leveling up "cultivation" fantasies for boys, or "romance" about being raped by a billionaire for girls. I judge it as "it sucks" because I read it and that's my opinion, and I'm assuming that's what the other person also did. Perhaps there's some hidden gem that simply never caught fire or got translated or anything. But perhaps not. There's no "conservation of culture" law that guarantees that a large country must be able to produce great culture in proportion to its economy or whatever. If anything it seems to work the opposite, where the best art comes from the descendants of families that were once rich but lost everything in great tragedies.
I really think that part of the reason "3 body problem" went viral was that people were hungry to see something out of China, and this was the first time we'd ever seen a real fiction book from them. But it was... very mediocre, in my opinion, and it wasn't followed by anything else.
Reverend Insanity, webfiction, very long and unfinished due to some unclear spat with publishing. Selfmadehuman liked it.
Levelling up and cultivation, plotting but also a lot of human-condition/character stuff in the allegorical in-universe Legends of Ren Zu. Original, interesting world. It constantly goes in directions you wouldn't expect. Characters have real theory of mind. I think it's great fun watching this amoral sociopath run rings around people who are tied down in social constructs of their own creation such that they can't use their strength. And what edge there is exists for a purpose.
I fully expect you'll look at Chapter 1, see that 'he took my body's purity line' and think 'oh this is degen trash'. That's fine, you're entitled to your opinion. I have no idea why the author put that line in since our MC is the least sexual man on that planet (or why there was a random 'hehe gays are funny' side story 2000 chapters in). There's a certain weirdness to it, so be it.
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