The Interrogator

The Interrogator is a long-form web novel by Mao Ni, written after The Vermilion Bird and Joy of Life. It began serialization on Qidian in April 2009 and concluded in September 2011, comprising four volumes and 998 chapters, roughly 3.435 million characters. Opening with an epigraph quoting Kant, the novel tells the story of Xu Le, a young man from the Eastern Forest region: he comes from a desolate, half-abandoned planet, carries knowledge in his mind that others cannot understand, and wields a power this world has never encountered. After leaving Eastern Forest, he drifts through cities like Shanglin—where the powerful gather—in humble roles such as doorkeeper and nursemaid, and is drawn into ever larger conspiracies and wars by one injustice after another involving friends, family, and innocents. He refuses to accept empty grand justifications, insisting that "those who make mistakes must be punished," and with his skills and uncompromising stubbornness, he demands what is due to the small people with the least bargaining power. Set against the backdrop of a confrontation between the Federation and the Empire in an interstellar civilization, the protagonist forms friendships and bonds with Shi Qinghai, Zhong Yanhua, Tai Zhiyuan, Zhang Xiaomeng, and others, while uncovering the mystery of his own origins through his actions. Compared with Joy of Life, this book focuses more on questions of institutions and justice: when the system itself has flaws, how should an individual conduct himself? The writing is crisp and the pace brisk, combining passion with reflection. It won the Silver Award at the first West Lake Type Literature Biennial Award in 2013 and was selected in 2018 as one of the "20 Works of 20 Years of Chinese Web Literature."