Hunting Net

Hunting Net is a virtual-MMORPG novel by Qidian writer Xia Xie, serialized from April 2, 2012 to January 19, 2013, running about 1.89 million characters in 646 chapters. The title works on two levels: it is short for the net of the game "Legend of Demon Hunting," and it also refers to the game of traps and mutual pursuit between hunter and prey. The protagonist, Xu Kai, is a returnee private detective who earned his license and opened a detective agency in the United States, nicknamed "Gray Mouse Hero" for operating in the gray areas. Back home, he joins Moon Investigation Company and works with its head, Yue Yue, starting from a case involving a wealthy man's illegitimate daughter and extending his schemes all the way into the Western-fantasy MMORPG Legend of Demon Hunting. The high-IQ fraudsters and thieves he once targeted—and who now come after him in turn—also set their own nets inside and outside the game, trying to break the board and turn the tables. Cat and mouse, friend and foe; inside and outside the net, true and false. The novel interweaves real-world investigation, evidence gathering, and business calculation with in-game guild wars, dungeon contests, and economic systems: the protagonist chooses the obscure "Distortion" spell path in the game, building advantages through speed-up, slow-down, and targeting control effects and "golden leveling spots," then counters his rivals in reality through deduction and information asymmetry. Fast-paced and full of reversals, with banter and wisecracks throughout, it is a classic "intellectual-battle novel wearing the skin of a game novel."