FANS across the Chinese-speaking world mourned the death of martial arts writer Louis Cha, better known by his pen name Jin Yong, who died Tuesday afternoon.

Cha, 94, best known for his epic wuxia novels following kung fu heroes in ancient China, passed away in a hospital in Hong Kong after a long illness, according to Hong Kong media.

While few of his books have been translated into English, Cha is one of the world’s most-read Chinese authors, with fans across the mainland, Hong Kong, Taiwan and throughout the Chinese diaspora. His stories have been adapted into television shows, films, comic books, and video games. The first part of his most popular series, “Legends of the Condor Heroes,” was published in English earlier this year.

Fans posted online their favorite stories and lines from his books. Others remembered his novels as a key part of their childhood. “I read your books during class, hidden in my desk. You were with me for my entire youth. You’ve left now, but you are still here,” one wrote.

A hashtag marking his death was one of the top trending topics on Weibo, viewed more than 1.3 billion times by Wednesday afternoon. In Xiangyang, a city in central China often featured in Cha’s novels, residents held a candlelight vigil on the city’s ancient walls.

Chip Tsao, a columnist in Hong Kong and friend of Cha, said the novelist was “the greatest storyteller in Chinese literature for more than 300 years,” according to local media.

On Wednesday, Cha’s profile on the search engine Baidu was turned to black and white. On Taobao, the e-commerce giant founded by Jack Ma, also a fan, customers who searched for Jin Yong-related products were greeted with Cha’s photo and a famous quote from one of his novels: “Look at the clouds, gathering and dispersing, dispersing and then gathering. Life is this.”

The sprawling worlds that Cha created, which blended martial arts, fantasy, and romance, have led to comparisons with JRR Tolkien. His stories often feature heroes who defend the powerless.

One fan wrote: “The world he created represents the dreams of this generation, the one before, and many more. At the end of every story, the spirit of chivalry and justice is felt. I hope this spirit will continue to be passed down.”

Cha said in a speech, published in 2005: “It does not matter to me whether I become a historical figure. All I want is that after one or two hundred years, there will still be people reading my books.”

Born in Hangzhou, Cha graduated from the Law School of Suzhou in 1948. To help support his studies, he began work in 1947 as a journalist and translator for the Ta Kung Pao newspaper in Shanghai. He came to Hong Kong in 1948 to work for the paper’s office in the city.

In 1955, after leaving Ta Kung Pao, he began to write novels that were steeped in three main ethical traditions of China — Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism.

His novels, and the world of the Chinese martial arts heroes they portrayed, were first opened to English readers in 1994.

Cha admitted in an interview the same year that Western readers might find his novels hard to appreciate.

“The reader may need some training in Chinese thinking to understand,” he said, describing his books as “traditional Chinese novels in their themes, morals, or philosophies.”

“Martial arts for me are just an instrument, a sugar coating. They can be used as a way of expressing my artistic ideas,” Cha said.

Those ideas, according to Cha, were distinctly anti-feudal and liberal.

(SD-Agencies)