Night Stalker

Night Stalker is a science-fiction web novel by the online author Robot Wally, serialized from June 21, 2021 in the science-fiction channel of Qidian Chinese Network under the "evolutionary mutation" category. It runs to about 1.415 million characters in 363 chapters, was completed in February 2023, and its latest chapter is "Otherworldly King." The story takes place in a war-shattered city of flickering neon and constant danger: superhumans lurk beneath the night rain, mutants prowl the broken streets, evil spirits stir in the great river that runs through the city, and the wilderness outside is wild and unrestrained. Oligarch corporations, mysterious cults, superhuman programs, cybernetic modification, personality masks, and the psychic network together weave the rules of this world, while street nobodies and high-level powers wrestle with one another in the cracks. The protagonist, Gu He, is a psychiatrist with a transmigrator's identity who only wants to live quietly as a "salted fish" in such a city, yet thanks to his psychological expertise and reputation for kindness he unexpectedly becomes widely popular and is drawn into a series of indescribable events, with matters developing in ways he himself cannot foresee. The author blends a cyberpunk future city, a superhuman system, and Cthulhu-style weird tales, adding ensemble-style characterization and a light tone tinged with "overthinking" and "deification" humor, creating a colorful world with undercurrents of danger. The work was selected for the third installment of the Youth Web Literature List by the Joint Web Literature Research Institutions of Five Universities; its total bookmarks and recommendations each number around one hundred thousand, reader reviews generally show a "slow start, strong finish" pattern, and some commentators note that the protagonist is rather passive and the ending somewhat rushed.