Stealing Fragrance

Stealing Fragrance is a long urban novel by the author "Zouguo Qingchun Suiyue," serialized on Zongheng Chinese Network from 2013, totaling more than two million characters. The title comes from "king of thieves, chivalrous and tender, roaming the city, stealing jade and fragrance." The story takes place in the north after the late 1970s: Li Huqiu is born in the Great Northern Wilderness; his mother, Yan Yuqian, was an educated youth from Hangzhou, and his father, Li Yuanchao, returned to the city and never came back. Left on the farm from childhood, he drifts onto the streets of Harbin and mixes with beggars and pickpockets, until the old thief Hao Quezi brings him into the "Kongkong Dao" lineage, where he learns the crafts of slipping doors, opening locks, slitting bags, and picking pockets. Following Li Huqiu's growth from orphan to "King of Thieves of China," the author unfolds the story in units such as "Crane Cry Picture," "Baling Pearl," "Southern Seas Blood Wind," "Exquisite Tower," "Aihui Treasure Vase," and "One Thief Under Heaven": battling thief kings, solving riddles, protecting treasures, and becoming entangled in the antiques trade, gambling games, and national conflicts. The work blends traditional underworld rules, jargon, and slang with the earthy street life of the Northeast; chapter titles often adapt classical poetry, and characters such as Yanzi and Hao Quezi appear throughout. It writes about the trade of thieves but talks about loyalty, rules, and how a boy fights out a fate of his own.