King in the Painting

King in the Painting is a web novel by Gan Tian in the "fantastical reality" genre. It was serialized on the Impossible World fiction site and completed on July 22, 2020, running 1,304 chapters and roughly 2.81 million characters. Film and television rights have been sold, and a text-based game adaptation is running concurrently on the Orange Light game platform.

The novel's core premise is a magic paintbrush that can resurrect historical emperors. King Zhou of Shang (Di Xin) accidentally travels to modern society, falling from the world's greatest tyrant to a broke loser with no money, forced to face all sorts of bizarre situations in the modern city. Alongside him appear thoroughly subverted historical figures: Su Daji has become obese, and the Yongzheng Emperor stands only 156 centimeters tall, watching modern-day fans obsess over his star persona while no one pays him any attention—and getting tricked into a pyramid scheme.

The story follows the absurd adventures of cartoonist Wu Suowei and this "emperor legion." In a light, humorous style with naturally delivered jokes, it gradually unfolds grand plotlines involving summoning emperors, apocalyptic crises, and intersections with a divine-human realm, touching on philosophical themes such as the nature of human lying, human origins, and prehistoric nuclear war. It ends with Wu Suowei and Di Xin joining forces to defeat the alien Jin Yinzi, who has possessed Old Yang, and foiling his scheme to dominate by exploiting human souls. The collision between historical figures and modern civilization is the book's biggest draw, wildly imaginative yet light in tone.