The Superhero and the Salted Fish The Aesthetic of the Ordinary in "Doomsday" Chinese Web Fiction

In this article I take a close look at several representative Chinese web novels that apparently tell "ordinary tales of ordinary people" set in an apocalyptical universe. By examining their shared characteristics in setting, plot arc, and character development, I show that the current pandemic shapes the liminal space created in these "doomsday" (mori or moshi) novels and generates through them an aesthetic of the ordinary. This unique aesthetic follows decades-long trends in Chinese web fiction on the one hand, while on the other finding inspiration in the extraordinary historical moment we live in, as rising popularism in China wages war against "pandemic orientalism" abroad. Indeed, the COVID-19 pandemic has become both the background and staging ground for these Chinese web authors and readers to perform self-maintenance and explore the meaning of life, the essence of their identity, and even the boundary between human and non-human forms. Given Chinese web fiction's immediacy to lived experiences, responsiveness to contemporary socio-cultural events, and the speed and scope of self-reproduction and proliferation in Chinese cyber space, these works can also offer some clue to the trauma wrought by and still unfolding in the current pandemic.