Shan Beilei, Xie Xin
Abstract: Juvenile detective fiction serves as an excellent quality education read, satisfying children’s curiosity, enhancing their logical thinking, and improving their observational, analytical, and reasoning abilities. It also subtly shapes their sense of justice and moral values. Xie Xin has a particular fondness for this genre, having created multiple series, including The After-School Detective Group, Detective Little Duqi, The Mythical Beast Boys, Octopus Brother Police Station, Roc Kingdom: Magic Detective, and Let’s Deduce! Comic Boy. His works embody the “Four Dimensions” of creation—depth, warmth, strength, and restraint. Compared to Western and Japanese juvenile detective fiction, he holds Chinese juvenile detective novels should focus on the creation of “masculine literature,” catering to the reading abilities and aesthetic standards of young readers. Mr. Xie calls for more like-minded individuals to devote themselves to Chinese detective fiction, conduct in-depth research, follow the correct creative direction and pass on the flame of “Chinese detective fiction.”
Keywords: Xie Xin; juvenile detective fiction; quality education; masculine literature
Shan Beilei: Hello, Mr. Xie! I have long heard of your works talked very often and am glad to get the opportunity to interview you.
Your work The Butterfly Specimen Disappeared was included in “A Century of Selected Chinese Detective Novels” (1908-2011), and your The Magic of Detective Fiction was selected into A Collection of Theoretical Materials on Chinese Detective Fiction (1902–2011). Is this a process of literary canonization? What impact does such a process have on writers’ creations?
Xie Xin:Thank you for your attention, Dr. Shan!I remember that I first learned about Professor Ren Xiang’s research and data collection work through the introduction of a senior detective writer. I then provided some of my works and enthusiastically recommended many detective writer friends I know. After the books were published, I saw that Professor Ren Xiang expressed his gratitude to me and several other writers in the postscript. In fact, collecting and sorting out Chinese detective fiction materials over the past century is no easy task. There are almost no specialized researchers collecting original detective novels scattered in many newspapers, periodicals, anthologies and selections. It should be noted that even in mainland China, where detective fiction creation is not “well-developed”, a considerable number of works (mainly medium and short stories) are published every year. Over time, detective fiction over the past century (mainly during the Republic of China and since China’s reform and opening-up) has shown a vigorous development trend with a vast number of works. It is not easy to concentrate them in the results of this ten-volume research project. Even more difficult is contacting the original authors. Among them, well-known writers and active front-line writers can still be contacted with the help of the media, but those who have written fewer works or are not specialized in writing only detective fiction are more difficult to reach. This requires our author circle to provide detailed information to “dig out” those low-key writers who are “hiding”.
Based on my years of personal experience, I believe that Chinese detective fiction writers are the most low-key group of creators. On the one hand, they benefit from their own knowledge and cultivation, maintaining calmness and rationality as their normal state, and are not enthusiastic about the lively literary circle. On the other hand, limited by the current situation that detective fiction is not valued in China's literary family and the realistic environment where “imported works” occupy the market, they can only choose to work diligently and silently, hoping that one day they can “learn from foreign strengths to overcome foreign powers” and regain our territory with solid works. In this sense, the publication of this set of selected works and theoretical research materials by Beijing Normal University Press has indeed played a role in literary research and historical data preservation, but it is still far from being “classic”. It can only be said to have achieved a phased summary and made some contributions to connecting the past and the future. Although this set of books was published more than ten years ago, it is still needed for relevant research work. In the third season of the documentary But There Are Still Books, a friend of mine—genre literature researcher and independent book reviewer Hua Sibi—appeared. When introducing relevant Chinese detective reasoning writers, he took out A Collection of Theoretical Materials on Chinese Detective Fiction for reference. I think that as long as there are still people like Professor Ren Xiang and Hua Sibi who are passionate about Chinese detective fiction, engage in historical research, conduct in-depth studies, and provide theoretical guidance for creative practice, more creators will be inspired to follow the example of their predecessors, follow the correct creative direction, enrich the original creation team, enhance the original creation strength, pass on the flame of “Chinese detective fiction”, continue the legacy, and make it spread like wildfire.
Shan Beilei：Compared with Western detective fiction, Chinese detective fiction seems to have a large gap both in theory and practice. Do you think there are any social, historical, cultural or other reasons for this?
Xie Xin：In 1841, the world’s first detective novel The Murders in the Rue Morgue was born in the United States, written by Edgar Allan Poe, the father of detective fiction. The Industrial Revolution, medical progress, the establishment of new police and national administrative systems, the development of modern cities, and the rise and expansion of colonial empires laid a broad stage for the birth of detective fiction. Capitalist countries such as the United States, Britain, and France have successively completed the initial creation of modern civilized societies, which also contributed to the prosperity of detective fiction. Later, with the global spread of colonial waves, China gradually fell from a feudal dynasty to a semi-colonial and semi-feudal society. The seeds of capitalism were interrupted, and the first opportunity to enter a modern civilized society was thus lost. Detective fiction also had no chance to “settle” in this magical oriental country. It was not until 1906 that Commercial Press published a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories Watson the Detective, which opened the prelude to the publication of Chinese detective fiction. Starting from the 1920s, a large number of writers such as Cheng Xiaoqing, Sun Liaohong, Lu Dan’an, Zhang Biwu, Zhao Tiaokuang, Zhang Tianyi, and Liu Bannong began to take the road of sinicizing detective fiction creation. Before the introduction of Western detective fiction, Chinese criminal literature was mainly traditional gong’an novels, such as The Cases of Judge Bao, The Cases of Judge Di, and The Cases of Judge Shi. These novels mainly tell legendary stories of imperial officials handling cases impartially and avenging the people, promoting the culture of honest officials who stand up for the people, the karma of heaven’s justice, and the simple sense of justice of punishing evil and promoting good. However, those in power who held the combined powers of “public security, prosecution, judgment, justice” and “military and government” often resorted to torture during trials to obtain confessions from criminals as soon as possible. In the late Qing Dynasty, novelist Liu E took the lead in reflecting on this phenomenon in The Travels of Lao Can, criticizing the abuse of torture to extract confessions in traditional judicial practice by using the behavior of respecting science and emphasizing evidence in Western Sherlock Holmes detective stories. In Western detective fiction, elements such as the new judicial system, modern scientific detective technology, civilized lifestyle, respect for the human rights of ordinary people, advocacy of rational spirit, and intricate plots with logical closure made Chinese readers seem to see a whole new world. Due to restrictions in various aspects such as social system, scientific development, and economic conditions, detective fiction has experienced a long and tortuous development in China. It was not until the founding of New China and the full implementation of the construction of the socialist legal system that the creation of detective fiction with Chinese characteristics was able to continue to develop and flourish. In Western genre fiction research, detective fiction research is a prominent field. Research on novel narration, novel sociology, and the modern knowledge system in detective fiction all show a fierce competitive situation. In recent years, influenced by theories such as post-colonialism, new research hotspots have emerged, such as the post-coloniality and transnationality in detective fiction, global law enforcement and cross-border crime novels, the setbacks of ethnic minorities in reality, the production of detective fiction in different regions of the world (especially in former colonial regions), and how to rewrite the original model of detective fiction. In contrast, our theoretical research on detective fiction is far behind that of Western countries, and even our neighbor Japan, due to limitations in research objects, research history, and research texts. The main works on Chinese detective fiction research include Ren Xiang’s Another Landscape:A History of Detective Fiction, Huang Zexin and Song Anna’s The Science of Detective Fiction, chapters on detective fiction in Fan Boqun and Tang Zhesheng’s A History of Modern Chinese Popular Literature, Lu Runxiang’s The Mysterious World of Detectives, and Jiang Weifeng’s A Study of Modern Detective Novelist Cheng Xiaoqing. These works still adopt a relatively traditional literary history writing style, and the exploration and reflection on the in-depth issues of Chinese detective fiction are still insufficient.
Shan Beilei:Your answer is very insightful—I now have a clearer understanding of detective fiction. Do you mainly focus on juvenile detective fiction in your creations? Can you talk about the characteristics of this type of detective fiction that distinguish it from general detective fiction, combined with your works?
Xie Xin: Yes, I mainly create juvenile detective fiction, which can also be called “children’s detective fiction”. In fact, neither of these two terms is standardized or rigorous. In our country, “juvenile” refers to the group between “children” and “youth”, but it also covers some “children” to a certain extent, hence the term “children and juveniles”. In Western countries, there is no concept of “juvenile”, so when translating and introducing to Western countries, we can only use the term “children’s detective fiction”. Due to the complexity of logic and scientific knowledge in detective fiction, it cannot truly face young children. Therefore, we creators use the names “juvenile detective fiction” or “children’s detective fiction”, but the target readers actually cover all primary school age groups, even junior high school students, that is, children from the literacy stage to teenagers aged 14 or 15. After years of writing, I have some personal understandings and views on the creation of juvenile detective fiction. Therefore, I often make horizontal and vertical comparisons of juvenile detective fiction to identify its exact position, which is more conducive to my creation. Horizontal comparison means: what is the difference between juvenile detective fiction and detective fiction for adults? Vertical comparison means: what is the difference between juvenile detective fiction and other children’s literature works? Let’s first look at the horizontal comparison. In my opinion, there are four main differences between juvenile detective fiction and detective fiction for adults.
First, juvenile detective fiction must have childlike fun. In the postscript of my book Detective Little Duqi, I used a title: “Injecting Childlike Fun into Detective Fiction”. The character setting in this work is ingenious. One of the boys can transform into a wolf when he hears a loud noise, acting as a police dog, and then return to his original form ten minutes later. Such a fantasy setting will make young readers feel interesting and attractive. Only by starting from children's preferences can we cultivate their interest in reading. For example, using children's perspectives and language to give them a strong sense of substitution and make the reading experience enjoyable can it be called a good juvenile detective novel.
Second, juvenile detective fiction should have diverse forms of expression. In terms of subject matter, it includes both realistic themes and fantasy themes, or integrates realistic and fantasy plots to complement each other. For example, detective stories with fairy tale themes, science fiction themes, mythological themes, etc. Just like my works such as Octopus Brother Police Station, Mecha Detective Group, The Mythical Beast Boys, Ding Qixia the Teleportation Detective, and Paper Detective: Princess’ Reasoning Notes, all are honkaku mystery stories with fantasy elements. I have also written children’s reasoning stories inspired by Tang poetry and published the book Paper Detective: Chinese Tang Poetry Reasoning Show.
Third, juvenile detective fiction should combine the theme of growth. Juvenile detective fiction is also a type of Bildungsroman. For example, the young protagonists in The After-School Detective Group and Paper Detective are tempered through solving puzzles time and time again. They not only acquire knowledge and skills but also achieve spiritual growth, realizing self-challenge and self-transcendence.
Fourth, juvenile detective fiction must have a healthy and positive theme. This is not only a basic requirement for book publishing but also a self-restraint for every juvenile detective fiction writer, as well as a responsible attitude towards young readers. For example, when involving murder cases, it is necessary to downplay the modus operandiand on-site descriptions, and emphasize the logical reasoning steps, the scientific knowledge used, and the process of overcoming difficulties to find the truth. Juvenile detective fiction is still detective fiction, and it is impossible to completely avoid themes such as “murder”. Therefore, “murder cases” in juvenile detective fiction should not only focus on the cases themselves but also expand the perspective, examine the cases from a legal and social perspective, and convey correct and beneficial values.
Now let’s look at the vertical comparison, the difference between juvenile detective fiction and other children's literature books. In my opinion, juvenile detective fiction has at least three characteristics that other children’s books do not have. First, it has the effect of popularizing legal and scientific knowledge, transmitting positive energy, promoting social integrity, and playing a role in social and moral norms. The legal knowledge in juvenile detective fiction is very important for teenagers to cultivate a spirit of the rule of law and form legal concepts. At the same time, it popularizes scientific knowledge, eliminates feudal superstition, upholds the scientific spirit, and improves teenagers’ scientific literacy. Second, it is a literary genre full of wisdom. Reading juvenile detective fiction can better stimulate teenagers’ curiosity and spirit of exploration, conduct “psychological adventures” like games, and satisfy their pleasure of imagination, thinking, discovery, and participation. It has the function of enlightening wisdom and feeling the charm of whimsy. Finally, it is a stress-relief reading material. Reading juvenile detective fiction can make the mind clear, thinking active, and psychological pressure released. In Western developed countries, detective fiction is often popular among intellectual groups. It can be seen that juvenile detective fiction is also a beneficial stress-relief reading material for teenagers.
Shan Beilei: Your grasp of literary concepts is really accurate! Through your detailed and clearly benchmarked explanation, I have a more precise understanding of the connotation and extension of the concept of juvenile detective fiction, as well as its position and role in children’s literature.
Compared with other children’s literature creations, is juvenile detective fiction more effective in stimulating children’s desire to explore the unknown and improving their reasoning and judgment abilities? Is it more challenging for you?
Xie Xin：The sense of justice, morality, and rational thinking in juvenile detective fiction are particularly important, far more than in other children’s literature works. This is one of the main reasons why I unswervingly insist on creating juvenile detective fiction. More than 20 years ago, before formally creating juvenile detective fiction, my understanding of detective fiction was very superficial. I knew two types of detective fiction: one was murder cases with exotic customs, often featuring Gothic buildings and deep, dark basements in the stories. The plots were thrilling, terrifying, and full of suspense, but the endings were generally unexpected. Many of these works were cheap imported detective novels, mostly appearing in popular magazines. Due to their poor quality, they were even called “street literature”. The other type was stories that positively depicted the investigation and solving of cases by Chinese public security police, focusing on the various difficulties and obstacles encountered by investigators during the handling of cases, as well as how they made choices when facing the test of emotion and law. Later, I learned that this kind of “domestic detective fiction” is actually public security literature, which is quite different from detective fiction, and can even be said to be two completely different literary forms. Theoretically, neither of these two types of “detective fiction” is suitable to be written for children. The former focuses on satisfying the curiosity, with blood, violence, and horror, which is not suitable for children. The latter mainly reflects the problems and heavy realities of the adult world, lacking elements that attract children. No matter which of these two types of detective fiction is used for reference, it is impossible to write a satisfactory juvenile detective fiction. How to reflect the characteristics of juvenile detective fiction? What is its core reading value? I have been thinking about this. Later, I refined the reading values of “science” and “rule of law”. How to perfectly integrate the two while maintaining readability? An accidental experience of buying books made me realize a detective fiction creation model called “honkaku mystery”. The so-called honkaku means “authentic” or “pure” in Japanese. Honkaku mystery refers to authentic detective reasoning novels with puzzle-solving as the core content. Corresponding to it are other schools such as variant mystery novels, social school detective novels, and hard-boiled detective novels. I suddenly realized that honkaku mystery is the best form for me to write juvenile detective fiction. Such stories mainly solve puzzles through scientific methods, emphasizing logic, science, fun, and gameplay. They are also very helpful for cultivating the spirit of the rule of law and correct three outlooks (world outlook, outlook on life, and values).
As long as the description of the bloody and violent aspects of the case is minimized, it is completely suitable for teenagers to read. Since then, I have firmly resolved to create unique Chinese juvenile honkaku mystery novels. At first, I practiced writing short stories, and later tried to write full-length novels. When submitting the book topic, I wanted to think of a distinctive name that could reflect the campus feeling and have a detective flavor. I couldn't think of a good one. Accidentally, I saw a magazine sample issue of ours published by Anhui Children’s Publishing House called After-School Life. It suddenly dawned on me that the word “after-school” was particularly good. It could not only remind people of the campus but also explain the basic setting that “investigations and case-handling are all carried out in spare time”. Therefore, I named the book The After-School Detective Group. With a good title, we also need good character settings. The names of the protagonists Mi Duoxi, Ma Weika, and Ou Muqi were actually names I had used in short stories before. When sorting them out again, I thought these three names were very good—special and easy to remember—so I used them as the protagonists, the main members of “The After-School Detective Group”. Later, at the suggestion of readers, more young main characters such as Ouyang Yanyan, Little Dragon Man, Shanyao, and Su Beilei were added one after another, making the cast of the book more substantial and the content richer. After several twists and turns,The After-School Detective Group found a home at Hebei Children’s Publishing House, where it remains to this day. It has been 17 years since the first book was published. In these 17 years, The After-School Detective Group has undergone several revisions, constantly adjusting the layout style and adding or deleting additional content, just to bring readers a better reading experience. At present, the total circulation has reached millions of copies. It was selected into the third session of the General Administration of Press and Publication’s “Three Hundred” Original Publishing Project and won the third prize in the National Detective Reasoning Novel Competition organized by the National Public Security Literature and Art Association and the Beijing Detective Reasoning Literature Association. The earliest batch of readers has already grown up, and some even got married and started families, having their own children. Now, the 11th season of The After-School Detective Group, namely Volumes 41 to 44, has also been published. I once said to young readers: You don’t have to be a detective, but you can train your detective thinking by reading detective novels. The so-called “detective thinking” means having eyes that are good at observing, a mind that is skilled at analyzing, perseverance that is unyielding, and a heart that upholds justice. I hope that readers of juvenile detective fiction can grow into brave, intelligent, and responsible “masculine juveniles”.
Shan Beilei:Your juvenile detective fiction has such a large circulation and extensive, long-lasting influence, which has invisibly exerted a subtle influence on the sense of justice, morality, and rational thinking of children and teenagers across the society. Has its social educational function surpassed that of your Japanese counterparts? In addition, what are the similarities and differences between your juvenile honkaku mystery novels and Japanese juvenile honkaku mystery novels?
Xie Xin: When I was a child, there were no electronic products like those in the current information age. Even watching TV or listening to the radio was a “luxury”. A book, a magazine, or a newspaper in hand was the best way to satisfy the spiritual world. Reading has accompanied me throughout my childhood, youth, and young adulthood. Now the situation has changed a lot. The impact of the Internet and electronic products has made extracurricular reading a “luxury” instead. Many children are unwilling to spend “precious time” on reading, which will inevitably lead to a decrease in their reading time and reading ability. Although children’s literature reading is slightly better than other types of reading, it still cannot hide the fact that teenagers’ overall reading volume is declining. Most of my books are series works, which require a long time to create and publish one after another, ranging from a few months to several years or even decades. So far, only two of my works have achieved a circulation of over one million copies, namely The After-School Detective Group and Roc Kingdom: Magic Detective. The former’s sales have been driven by years of good reputation and popularity, while the latter achieved millions of copies in a short time relying on the promotion of Tencent’s children’s game platform. Compared with film and television, animation, or other online media and channels, the influence generated by the circulation of these books is actually limited. It should be said that very limited. Fortunately, communication in the network information age is more convenient. I often receive online messages or comments from young readers. They express their love for the works and pay attention to my latest creations. Some of these children even study hard, exercise, and enter police, judicial, legal and other related majors under the influence of my works, truly becoming law enforcers and guardians of justice. This magical “chemical reaction” is really impressive. As for whether this influence and social educational function have surpassed that of Japanese counterparts, I have no relevant data and dare not jump to conclusions. But judging from the feedback from readers, I believe my creation is successful. Compared with Japanese juvenile detective fiction, I think the works of both sides strictly follow the “logic first” principle of “honkaku mystery” in the creation model, taking puzzle-solving and reasoning as the core, designing classic elements such as locked room mysteries and trick traps, and emphasizing the fairness of clues. In addition, both pay attention to grasping the scale, making the stories close to the juvenile group, combining puzzle-solving with teenagers’ growth and adventure, allowing readers to gain courage and satisfy their reading needs. The difference is that I create Chinese juvenile detective fiction with the positioning of “masculine literature”. The teenagers in my works are flesh-and-blood Chinese teenagers. I have not copied the absurd, bizarre, exaggerated, and anti-traditional elements of Japanese-style reasoning. For example, Detective Conan often sets off the incompetence of the Japanese police and judicial organs with the image of “the savior of the Japanese police”, and frequently takes out non-existent case-solving props in reality to highlight the lonely heroism. Or like Twenty Faces the Phantom Thiefwritten by Edogawa Rampo, with his super disguise ability and genius criminal ability, he depicts a classic image of a charming villain in the readers’ minds. In my works, the young characters are just the classmates, friends, and neighbors around us. They speak, act, and think like Chinese people without any sense of disobedience. They are optimistic, positive, intelligent, and masculine, each with their own strengths. They often unite to “capitalize on strengths and avoid weaknesses” to face difficulties. Therefore, their stories are more “down-to-earth”, making readers have a sense of substitution and involuntarily immerse themselves in them. In addition, I have 12 years of experience as a police officer, so I will naturally integrate scientific investigation and legal common sense into my creations, popularize scientific knowledge, cultivate the spirit of the rule of law, and positively guide the values of readers.
Shan Beilei:Earlier you mentioned: I hope that readers of juvenile detective fiction can grow into brave, intelligent, and responsible “masculine juveniles”. At present, the overall mental state of Chinese teenagers is not very satisfactory, especially the lack of “vitality” and “courage”. What do you think literature should do in educating and cultivating the next generation?
Xie Xin：On the surface, literature seems to be “useless”, but it is precisely this “useless use” as Zhuangzi said that subtly touches people’s souls in an aesthetic way, making our emotions more delicate and our spiritual world richer. At present, teenagers are affected by many factors, such as academic pressure, sibling competition, family spoiling, parental divorce, etc. They are prone to giving up when facing difficulties and setbacks, lack a sense of responsibility and commitment, and are short of courage and self-confidence. These are the weaknesses of human nature, which can be reversed through learning and education, and reading literary works is an indispensable part of it. I realized this problem more than ten years ago and put it into practice, creating a series of “masculine literature” books. To address the problems of teenagers’ “laziness, laxity, and cowardice”, I first attract them with thrilling detective stories and various whimsical ideas, then cultivate their legal awareness, uphold the scientific spirit, provide positive feedback, encourage them actively, strengthen their inner selves, and make them dare to take responsibility. In 2014, I joined hands with children's military novel writer Ba Lu (formerly named Zhang Fuyuan) and children’s adventure novel writer Peng Xuluo, with the platform of Hebei Children’s Publishing House, to jointly create the “Masculine Juveniles” book series. I wanted to not only contribute my own strength but also mobilize more peers engaged in genre creation to do something practical for children. The “Masculine Juveniles” book series, with three major creation directions of “children's detective”, “children’s military”, and “children’s adventure”, was thus born. We want to declare war on the current urgent psychological problems of teenagers such as “lost courage”, “lack of blood”, “foolishness”, “inner timidity”, and “lack of commitment”, and recapture the lost children’s literature reading position with works such as The After-School Detective Group, Special Forces School, and Hook’s Great Adventure. Over the past ten years, we have published more than 400 varieties of books in the “Masculine Juveniles” series, with a total sales of 29 million copies and a sales volume of 735 million yuan. We have held more than 3,000 reader meetings, public lectures, and book signings. Derivatives such as audio stories, comic books, and peripheral products have been continuously launched, influencing tens of millions of young readers in China. I think that with this ten-year “report card”, we still haven’t done enough. After all, China is so big and has 300 million teenagers. We have only made a contribution as slight as a ripple, not enough to set off a storm starting from the gentle breeze. We hope that our original intention and this ten-year children’s book publishing project can attract the attention of some education experts, educators, and parents, drive more creation of “masculine literature”, help children expand their cognitive horizons, comprehensively improve their mental capacity, become a new generation of responsible and committed people, play the most basic role in guiding reading, and make our own contributions to the development of children's literature in the new era.
Shan Beilei: Could you please give some suggestions to the new generation of writers who are interested in juvenile detective literature?
Xie Xin：At present, I mainly engage in juvenile detective fiction creation in my spare time. I am a civil servant, not a full-time writer. I also have some writer friends around me. Some of them were originally children’s literature writers, writing fairy tales, novels, poems, etc., and one of their works is children’s detective reasoning stories. Others were originally detective fiction writers, who turned to children’s detective book creation because the traditional book market is sluggish. In either case, I think it is worthy of encouragement and affirmation. After all, our creation team is not strong enough, and we still need talents from all aspects to enrich it. For those new-generation writers who are interested in creating juvenile detective fiction or children’s reasoning stories, I have three suggestions: 1. Clarify your positioning. We are not just detective fiction writers, but juvenile detective fiction writers, and in a broader sense, we are children’s literature writers. We must clarify that our target audience is young readers, not adult readers. We should not blindly emphasize the difficulty of logical reasoning, the complexity of tricks, and the excitement of solving puzzles. Instead, we should take into account the reading ability and aesthetic standards of young readers and write juvenile detective fiction suitable for them. 2. If the writer himself is not a police officer or a legal worker and has no judicial practice experience, he can collect more materials and conduct on-site visits during the writing process to make the content and details involving police work in the novel more realistic. Never work behind closed doors, especially on legal issues, which cannot be imagined out of thin air. 3. The statement of scientific knowledge and scientific facts must be accurate. Juvenile detective fiction also has a bit of “popular science” function. Ensuring the accuracy of scientific knowledge and the rigor of the scientific spirit is the most basic requirement. We should not abandon scientific standards to create highly difficult puzzles, otherwise, it will put the cart before the horse and go astray. Detective reasoning puzzles must be a fair, just, reasonable, and legitimate thinking game between writers and readers on the basis of science; otherwise, it is fooling others and oneself.
Shan Beilei: Thank you for your profound elaboration!
Xie Xin: Thank you for your concern, Mrs Shan, and thank you for the support of the majority of readers and friends.
The Authors
Shan Beilei, female, Ph.D., lecturer at Taizhou University.In 2010, she was awarded a scholarship by DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) to participate in a German summer training program at Bremen University of Applied Sciences, Germany. In 2011, she went to Germany for language learning and exchange at the invitation of Schwäbisch Hall, Taizhou’s sister city in Germany. In 2018, she participated in the Business English Teaching Visiting Program at Zhejiang Gongshang University and obtained the Senior Cross-Border E-Commerce Professional Certificate. From 2019 to 2022, she earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education.She presides over one project funded by the Jiangsu Provincial Philosophy and Social Sciences Fund and one Party Building and Ideological and Political Education Research Project ofTaizhou University. She has published several academic papers.Email: 350905669@qq.com
Xie Xin, male, Member of the China Writers Association, Member of the China Popular Science Writers Association, Deputy Director and Secretary-General of the 7th Children’s Literature Professional Committee of the Anhui Writers Association, Fellow of the 30th Advanced Seminar for Young and Middle-aged Writers of Luxun Academy of Literature, Distinguished Expert of the Famous Writer Comment Group for Junior Reporters of China Juvenile and Children’s Network, Member of the Expert Database of Shaanxi Youth Periodical Media Co., Ltd., Special Editor of Happy Detective, Founder of the book brand “Uncle Xie Xin’s Juvenile Detective Alliance”. He has published and released 10 million words of children’s literature works, which have appeared in hundreds of domestic newspapers and periodicals. He has written more than 100 fairy tales and novels. His works have been selected into the third session of the General Administration of Press and Publication’s “Three Hundred” Original Publishing Project, the national social science fund project “A Century of Selected Chinese Detective Novels” (1908–2011), the 2019
Recommended Book List for Primary and Secondary School Libraries (Rooms) of the Ministry of Education, the 2019 National Farmer’s Bookstore Recommended Book List, the “100 Books Teachers Love in 2020” selected by China Education News, and the 2021 National Farmer’s Bookstore Recommended Book List. His works have won the 2011 “Laurel Children’s Book Award”, the third prize in the 6th National Detective Reasoning Novel Competition, and the Favorite Writer Award of Pocket Stories in 2020 and 2021. His representative Works: The After-School Detective Group series, Detective Little Duqi series, The Mythical Beast Boys series, Octopus Brother Police Station series, Roc Kingdom: Magic Detective series, Let’s Deduce! Comic Boy series, etc.