Wolong Sheng

      Niu Heting, known by his penname Wolong Sheng, was born in Zhenting County in Henan Province in 1930, and died in Taiwan at the end of March, 1997. As an influential wusia writer, his works promoted wusia novel genre in the 60's.

      He attended army before finishing high school. Then following the troops he moved to Taiwan in 1948. Never having been well trained in literature, he indulged himself in listening to stories by storytellers, and he was also a fan of traditional suspense and horror fictions such as Shihgong An, Cisia Wuyi, and Paian Jingci. In addition he read the earlier wusia novels written by important writers like Huanjhu Lojhu, Jheng Jhengin, Bai Yu, Wang Dulu. All the stories and novels inspired him to write his own works, and when he did he became very successful.

      His first novel, Fongchen Siaying published in 1957, won him a good reputation. Two years later he wrote a wusia series, Yu Chaimeng, for the daily newspaper, Jhongyang Rih Bao. This story with illustrations was also carried by other newspapers including Dahua Wan Bao and Shanghai Rih Bao. The newspapers publishing his stories soon took over the market. Newspaper readers would read his series prior to eating breakfast and it could be regarded as the Yu Chaimeng syndrome.

      Apart from Yu Chaimeng published in the three newspapers, his other three novels could be read in other newspapers. In addition, overseas newspapers also carried his wusia series, such as Jiangsyue Syuanshuang on the Singjhou Rih Bao.

      Newspapers, which printed Wolong Sheng's series, always put in an illustration. So when he was in the last minutes to send his story overseas, he and his assistants would sit, write and draw in the post office. And it became a phenomenon that the novelist and his co-workers worked without feeling disturbed by readers who surrounded them.

      Some episodes he invented became very popular and would even be used as slang, such as wulin miji, originally meaning the precious wugong book, was then used to indicate the books which speak of the important message in general. For nearly twenty years until Gu Long came on the scene, Wolong Sheng dominated the market of wusia novels with nearly thirty books, each one around six hundred thousands words.

      He had once written plays for TV series and produced TV programs. He revised his famous novel, Yu Chaimeng, for the TTV (Taiwan Television Co.), and it was extremely successful. Unfortunately the great wealth he made by writing and producing did not last long when he invested it in doing business; worse than that he was even in debt. So within the last few years before he died, he wrote to survive. Publishers would use his name to release unknown writers' works and there were more then one hundred novels under his name. In fact the number of the novels he wrote was around forty and the ones never changed by publishers for commercial reasons was not more than twenty.