"Content-wise, I see a huge demand for Chinese literature," said Steven Liu, CSCI's head of research. He said growing interest in Chinese culture will increase demand for online novels and adaptations such as video games, movies and TV series.

Publishing industry experts said Chinese online novels revolve around universal themes, making them highly appealing to global audiences.

Ren Xiang, academic course adviser and research fellow at the Australia-China Institute for Arts and Culture at Western Sydney University in Australia, said, "Popular titles (in Chinese online literature) have key elements of genre fiction that not only attract international readers, but also help remove the barriers of intercultural communication."

Ren, who has published several papers on Chinese online literature, said most of the popular online novels can be classified as wuxia and thus appeal to global fans of fantasy literature. Wuxia is a genre of fiction that chronicles the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Legend of Fuyao falls into this category.

"In wuxia, fans can easily find commonalities between the imagined supernatural universes of Chinese wuxia and Western fantasy novels," Ren said