Li Jhengsian known by his penname Ci Ru was born in 1959. He started writing knight-errant novels when he was twenty-six years old. He was famous for the novel Chanyi Dao. Although he studied mathematics in university, his novels were filled with Buddhist teachings. Not only the conversations contained various Buddhist principles and Zen Buddhist gongan (a much discussed issue), Buddhist terms were usually cited to name weapons and wugong. So there is an obvious Buddhist influence on his style. However the predomination of the killing scenes in the knight-errant genre discouraged him, so he turned to study Buddhism, and in 1989 when he was thirty years old, he established a Buddhist sect Foshengzong and dedicated himself to preaching Buddhism.

      Ci Ru's writings were influenced by Jin Yong and Gu Long, such as Gu Long's poetic phrases and Jin Yong's adaptations of historical events. The later could be seen in Chanyi Dao, which was set in the Ming Dynasty. "Mercy", the most common mentioned ethic of Buddhism appeared in his books very often. Roles in his works were bright, and the moral of his works was both to demonstrate the ethic of studying wushu and to promote the ideal busha "don't kill," as the highest level of the knight-errant.

      His stories were humorous and light, and the ordinary themes of discontent found in the knight-errant genre did not appear in his works. He restarted writing in 1999 with his new work Ningfong Tiansia spanning half of the globe. He planned to change the traditional way of writing suspenseful knight-errant stories, so his fans could looking forewords to reading a fascinating new novel.