Shushan jianxia zhuan 蜀山劍俠傳

Shushan jianxia zhuan 蜀山劍俠傳 "Legend of the swordsmen of the mountains of Shu" is a martial-arts novel written during the Republican period by Zhuanzhulou Zhu 還珠樓主 (i.e., Li Shoumin 李壽民, 1902-1961). It comprises 18 chapters.

It is one of the representative works of traditional Chinese sword-hero (jianxia 劍俠) fiction. Written in the classical chapter-and-episode format (zhanghui 章回), it is vast in scope, blending tales of sword immortals with stories of gods and demons into a single whole. Its content is entirely fictional. "Mountains of Shu" refers to Mount Emei 峨嵋山 in Sichuan. The swordsmen who cultivate their skills on this mountain form the Emei School (Emei pai 峨嵋派), which represents the orthodox, righteous path. In contrast, there are also heterodox sects of the "left-handed paths and side doors" (zuodao pangmen 左道旁門). These heterodox sects, too, are divided into good and evil: those of a righteous nature are allies of the Emei School, while those of an evil nature commit misdeeds and deliberately oppose the Emei School.

The founder of the Emei School was True Man Changmei (Changmei Zhenren 長眉真人), who has long since ascended to immortality. The leaders of the school in the novel are the husband-and-wife pair known as "True Man of the Marvelous Unity of the Upright Qi of Heaven and Earth" (Qiankun Zhengqi Miaoyi Zhenren 乾坤正氣妙一真人), Qi Shuming 齊漱溟, and his wife. They accept disciples widely, among whom the most outstanding are collectively known as the "Three Heroes and Two Clouds" (Sanyin Eryun 三英二雲). These are Li Yingqiong 李英瓊, Yu Yingnan 余英男, Yan Renying 嚴人英, Qi Lingyun 齊靈雲, and Zhou Qingyun 周輕雲 — four women and one man. The novel mainly depicts their activities as they study martial and mystical arts, attain the Dao, and acquire magical treasures.

Before the outbreak of the War of Resistance against Japan (1937-1945), the Shushan jianxia zhuan was serialised in the Tianjin newspaper "Tianfeng Daily" (Tianfeng bao 天風報) and published as standalone volumes by Lili Publishing House 勵力出版社 in Tianjin. Later, after the author moved to Nanjing 南京, the work was published directly by Shanghai Zhengqi Bookstore 上海正氣書局, continuing through to Volume 55 (the final five volumes bearing the collective title Sequel to The Legend of the Swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu). This was in March 1949, when Shanghai was on the eve of the Communist takeover. The author originally planned for the entire work to reach ten million characters. By this point, although roughly five million characters had been written, only half of the intended work had been completed. The work thus remained unfinished. It was not until 1988 that the Yuelu Publishing House 岳麓書社 collated and published this monumental work of swordsmen fiction.

Aside from the Shushan jianxia zhuan, Huanzhoulou Zhu wrote other martial arts novels, including Shushan jianxia xinzhuan 蜀山劍俠新傳 "New legends of the swordsmen of the Mountains of Shu", Changmei Zhenren Zhu zhuanji 長眉真人主專集 "Collected stories of True Man Changmei", Emei qi'ai 峨嵋七矮 "The Seven Short Ones of Mt. Emei", Wudang yiren zhuan 武當異人傳 "Chronicles of the extraordinary figures of Mt. Wudang", and Wudang qinü 武當七女 "The seven maidens of Mt. Wudang". These works are companion pieces to the Shushan jianxia zhuan. Their stories and characters are interconnected, forming a continuous narrative universe.