[2] It wasn't until 1938 that he finally adopted Baiyu as his pen name for the martial arts stories, a genre that was not viewed as being quite so respectable and had faced occasional sanctions by the government.
His first martial arts novel, Twelve Money Darts (十二金钱镖), was published serially in the newspaper Yong Bao (庸报) from February 1938, eventually being released in book form in four volumes.
Set in the years around the time of the fall of the Ming Dynasty and the rise of the Qing, it was his most highly praised story and served as the first volume of a trilogy and was followed by 血涤寒光剑, from 1941, and 毒砂掌 in 1947.
Later Years and Influence Following the Communist victory in the Chinese Civil War in 1949, the wuxia genre in which Gong Baiyu made his name was banned in the Mainland.
Liang Yusheng, one of the three major novelists in the martial arts literature of the post-1949 generation, chose the yu (羽) in his nom de plume in homage to Gong Baiyu.