Chi Zha

Chi Zha is an urban novel serialized on Qidian Chinese Network by the Chongqing Hechuan web novelist Feng Tianxiao (real name Li Wei, 1975–2012). Along with its companion novel Jue, it belongs to the same vein of his writing. The book runs to about 2.71 million Chinese characters and was completed in March 2012. It continues the author's signature theme of humble origins and hardscrabble struggle: the protagonist, born into poverty, refuses to bow down through a succession of social trials and the warmth and coldness of human relations, and by dint of courage, character, and ruthlessness opens up his prospects step by step, reshuffling the deck of fate. The novel carries a distinctive Sichuan-Chongqing dialect flavor and the bustling, down-to-earth atmosphere of everyday urban life, with a fast narrative pace and dense conflict. It captures both the frustration of ordinary people crushed by reality and the exhilarating satisfaction of turning one's fortunes around. The title evokes the phrase "chi zha feng yun" (commanding the wind and clouds), pointing to the protagonist's reversal of status from being ordered about to commanding the winds and clouds himself. Shortly after completing this book, Feng Tianxiao died on April 2, 2012, in an outdoor accident at the age of only 37, making this novel one of the long works he completed in the final phase of his life. During his lifetime he wrote more than 13 million characters, and his print editions circulated among Chinese-speaking readers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, though no publicly verifiable simplified-Chinese print publication information exists for Chi Zha itself, and readers have mainly accessed it through online serialization and digital compiled editions.