A year later, he was transferred to Nanjing, working as an editor for Youth, a recently started magazine.
He gained initial fame with his 1983 novella The Sinking Land (Chinese: 沉沦的土地),[3] then he became a professional writer since 1984.
[4] In the meantime, he attempted to make a decent living by investing in business, stock and real estate.
To make the plot vivid, he even visited a jail and interviewed the detained officials for corruption.
The news caused a strong reaction among the individual investors, so he became the candidate for CCTV Person of the Year for Social Common Good (Chinese: 社会公益人物).