Interstellar Guest

Interstellar Guest is a long-form work by Mao Ni serialized on Qidian from April 27, 2009, to May 20, 2011. It runs to about 3.3 million characters in four volumes and 998 chapters. The novel is set on a grand space-opera stage—the Federation, the Empire, the great districts, planets, and the Seven Great Families intertwine their powers, while humanity continues its wars and oppressions in worlds beyond the ancestral planet. The protagonist, Xu Le, is an orphan on a half-abandoned planet in the Donglin District; his foster parents and sister die in a mining accident. He is skilled at mechanical repair, carries some strange bits of knowledge in his mind, and harbors a power no one has ever touched. When his master is pursued and he is implicated and wanted, he assumes a new identity to work at a famous university. He meets Zhong Yanhua, the young daughter of a warlord; Shi Qinghai, a young agent; and Tai Zhiyuan, a descendant of a former dynasty's emperor. He also parts ways with his girlfriend Zhang Xiaomeng, who has devoted herself to revolution. He later saves his friend and the idol singer Jian Shui'er, gains the appreciation of the Federation's god of war and rises through the military, and discovers his secret origins during a military operation into the Empire. The book opens with Kant's famous line about the starry sky above and the moral law within, weaving together the steel roar of mecha, interstellar travel, and repeated debates over justice, law, freedom, and cost. Xu Le holds to the creed that "those who make mistakes should be punished," repeatedly speaking up for small people erased by "the greater good," and ultimately exposes the mastermind behind the scenes and brings about a peace agreement between the Federation and the Empire. The novel won the Silver Award at the first West Lake Type Literature Biennial Award in 2013 and was selected in 2018 for "20 Works of 20 Years of Chinese Online Literature," ranking first.