Mu became good friends with Liu Na'ou and Dai Wangshu, both of whom were major contributors to the literary movement known as New Sensualism or the New Sensationists (Chinese: 新感觉派; pinyin: xīn gǎnjué pài; also see as: Shinkankakuha).

His short stories conveyed in dream-like fashion the experience of living in the modern city and included many episodes in nightclubs and cabarets.

[5] In 1940, while riding a rickshaw to his office, Mu was shot by assassins who were working for Chiang Kai-shek's underground resistance forces, and he died of blood loss on the way to the hospital.

His most famous short stories are highly modernist pieces that attempt to convey the fragmented and inhuman nature of modern life in the metropolis.

[8] In the story "The Lady in the Inky-Green Cheongsam" (Chinese: 墨綠衫的小姐; pinyin: Mòlǜ shān de xiǎojiě), Mu showed the fascination with exotic themes and locations, which was a popular culture in Shanghai during the 1930s.

"[10] Poshek Fu of the University of Illinois discusses, and Margaret Blair portrays, the complex political situation faced by Mu and other modernist writers of the 1930s.