Dragon Gate Emperor

Dragon Gate Emperor is a long urban novel by the web author Duanzhang (real name Guo Zhi), first serialized on online platforms around 2006, later carried on Tadu Literature, and ranked high on men's-channel sales charts. With the tagline "He doesn't run with the underworld, yet he raises a godfather; he doesn't work in officialdom, yet he enlightens many high officials; he doesn't do business, yet he commands vast wealth; he doesn't chase women, yet he draws endless romance," it tells the story of Liang Chen, a grassroots youth from the countryside who fights his way up from the bottom and makes his mark in the city. The book avoids superpowers that soar to the heavens and earth and avoids contrived, far-fetched plots; instead it uses a relatively "hard-boiled" approach to depict the warmth and coldness of human relations and the jostling of interests in the city: bloody clashes with firearms, loyalty that would take a knife for a brother, a chivalrous spirit that helps the needy, and finely tangled romances. The entanglements among Liang Chen, Chen Meiqi, Yang Dong and others run through the whole book; the protagonist rises from a youth looked down upon to gradually accumulate strength and connections, and finally "leaps the dragon gate," setting off an urban storm of his own. The book runs about 1,600-plus chapters and over four million characters, ending with "The Wedding Day," and is one of the representative works the author has polished in recent years.