A poster for The Legend of Mi Yue. [Photo/people.com]

All too often, the success of an adaptation also makes an actor or actress famous overnight. The hit TV series The Legend of Zhen Huan, adaptated from the online novel of the same name and written by Liu Lianzi, in 2012, raised its leading actress, Sun Li, to A-list status in mainland China. Lines from the drama, like “ji hao de”, meaning “extremely nice”, become buzzwords online and offline. The drama was reedited and exported to the U.S in 2013, bringing the craze and image of a fictional emperor’s harem overseas. In 2015, The Legend of Mi Yue, a sequel to Zhen Huan, starring Sun Li, will be put on the screen.

With prevalence of mobile phones and wireless networks, online fiction is more accessible to readers than traditional literature in print. Zhang Jiajia, a writer who writes bedtime stories on Sina Weibo, announced that five of his online stories will be turned into movies in 2015 and one of them, The Ferryman, will be directed by himself and supervised by prestigious Hong Kong director Karwai Wong.

The phenomenal success of online fiction adaptations even affects the publishing industry. Book publishers reveal that sometimes they have to alter the title and keywords of their publications in the style of Zhang Jiajia or other online writers to cater to most readers’ tastes.

However, the sensation of online fiction worries scholars and critics, who insist that such profit-chasing trends in publishing and movie industries might bring viral effects on the young generation and a devastating blow to literature.