More than twenty years of reading—and the stories that refused to disappear.

I've been reading fiction for more than twenty years. At this point, I've lost count of how many novels I've read—probably eight or nine hundred, maybe more. Many titles, characters, and plots have faded. A few stories, though, have stayed surprisingly clear in my memory.

My relationship with fiction began early. Once, while I was at the hospital with my mother, I grew so bored in the corridor that I spent what felt like an enormous amount of money on a fiction magazine. I barely remember any of the stories in that magazine now. What I do remember is the feeling of discovering a completely different world through fiction. As a kid, that stayed with me.

Later, when the internet was just starting to reach ordinary homes in China, computers were still far too expensive for many families. That made my weekly computer class at school something I looked forward to all week. The first Chinese web novel I really got into was 邪神传说. Looking back, it definitely shows its age. But at the time, it opened up an entirely new world for me. Every time I had access to a computer, I could go a little further into that world.

I never really left novels after that. I read xuanhuan, xianxia, urban fantasy, historical fiction, science fiction, and mystery, along with many books few people remember now. Some I dropped halfway through. Others kept me up late for days, only to disappear from my memory years later.

Recently, I kept coming back to one question: should all these stories that once meant so much to me simply disappear from memory after I finish them? They accompanied so many evenings, journeys, disappointments, and private moments. Letting all of that fade into little more than “I once read something good” started to feel like a loss.

That is why I made Spawnroute. I want to keep track of what I'm reading and, one by one, record the novels that still feel worth recommending after I've finished them. Spawnroute isn't about ranking as many books as possible, and popularity isn't enough to earn a recommendation. My standard is much simpler: I've read the book, I enjoyed it, and I genuinely believe it's worth your time.

I also want to help readers outside China discover more contemporary Chinese fiction—not just the well-known classics that have been available in translation for years, but also the strange, ambitious, funny, moving, and sometimes wonderfully unconventional stories being published today. When an official English edition is available, I'll tell you where to find it. When it isn't, I'll make that clear and preserve the original Chinese information.

For me, Spawnroute is both a place to share recommendations and a personal record of more than twenty years of reading. I hope you find a novel here that you truly love. And maybe one of the stories that once stayed with me will one day stay with you too—through a quiet night, a long journey, or a lonely hour.

I read this book, and I genuinely believe it deserves your time.

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