How to Find the Raw of a Chinese Web Novel You Know in English

"Raw" is fandom shorthand for the original, untranslated novel. You want it when a translation stops, when you'd like to know how far ahead the original is, or when you're about to ask someone to translate a book and need to say which one.

DaoSearch doesn't host chapters. What it gives you is the raw's identity: the Chinese title, the author's pen name, the platform that publishes it, its status and length, and a link straight to its page there. Here's how to get from an English name to that.

Start with the English title

Type the title into the search box at the top of any page. Suggestions drop down as you type, and picking one opens the book. Lord of the Mysteries is a typical case: the well-known English name finds 诡秘之主 on Qidian.

The search box is set to one platform at a time, shown by the icon beside it. You don't have to guess right. If the platform you're on has no match, the suggestions offer the others. Press Enter on a title only one other platform lists and you're sent to that platform's results. If several list it, the page gives you a "Try this search on" line for each.

Two things about English titles here:

• They're translations, and the fan name may differ. Well-known novels read under the name English readers use, because the translation works from a glossary of those names. Lesser-known ones get a plain translation of the Chinese. A fan translation that kept the pinyin as its title may not match. 元尊 is "Yuan Zun" to most English readers, and when we checked, its English title here was a translation of the meaning instead.
• A short, distinctive piece works better than the whole thing. The search finds every title that contains what you typed. Two unusual words beat a full title remembered slightly wrong.

When the English fails, don't keep rewording it. Go to the next step.

Get the Chinese title from wherever you read it

Almost every English listing of a translated novel prints the original title somewhere: under "associated names" or "alternative titles" on a tracker, in the translator's first chapter, on a wiki page. Copy it and paste it into the same search box.

Chinese is the exact route. A title in Chinese characters matches the raw directly, one character is enough to search on, and the suggestions show the Chinese title back to you so you can see it's the right one. Searching 诡秘之主 lands on the same book as the English did.

If you have the link to the novel on its own platform, that's better still. Paste the whole link into the search box, with or without other text around it, and it opens that exact book. Chapter links work too. The search guide lists the link formats for all six platforms.

Or go through the author

Authors change titles. They rarely change pen names. If you know who wrote the book, open the filters on a Browse page and put the name in the Author box, in English or Chinese. 爱潜水的乌贼 on Qidian lists everything that author has there, and every book page links to the author's other books.

English pen names here are translations too, so the Chinese pen name is the reliable one. A pen name you know in pinyin may not be how the English reads here, so use the characters if you can get them.

What the book page tells you

Once you're on the book's page, everything you need to identify the raw is in the top block:

• The Chinese title, right under the English one, with a copy button beside it. That string is what you search for anywhere else.
• The author, in English with the Chinese pen name in brackets.
• Status, Length and Updated. Whether the original is finished, how long it is in Chinese characters, and when its author last added to it. A thousand Chinese characters comes out at very roughly 600 to 700 English words, so you can judge how far a stalled translation got.
• Source. The platform's name, linked to the book's own page there. That's the raw. It opens in a new tab.

Under those you'll find the synopsis, the tags, the platform's own figures and reader comments in English. "What these numbers mean" beside the figures opens the guide for that platform.

If a platform has taken a book down, the page says so in one line, something like "No longer available on Fanqie", and keeps showing what was last seen there. The Source link stays so you can check for yourself.

Also on: the same novel on another platform

A lot of novels are listed on more than one platform. A paid site's novel gets licensed to a free app, or a platform carries a partner's catalogue. When that happens, the book page has a line under its buttons that starts "Also on", with a link for each other platform.

元尊 on Zongheng is an example. When we checked, its page said "Also on Qidian · Qimao". Each name opens that platform's page for the same novel here, with that platform's own figures, tags and comments.

That's useful in three ways:

• Reader figures. One copy can have a handful of comments and another thousands. Check the busy one.
• Status. If one platform still says ongoing and another says completed, the book is finished.
• A second place to find the raw. The copy on a free app is one you can open without paying for chapters.

We only link two entries as the same novel when the Chinese title and the named author both match exactly, and we skip generic titles and placeholder authors. So the line is cautious: when it's there, it's the same book. When it's absent, the novel may still exist elsewhere under a different title, and a search for the author on the other platform will find it.

Copies of one novel also share one English title, pen name and synopsis, so the book reads the same whichever page you land on.

Show Chinese names on every list

If you're matching raws regularly, turn on Show Chinese names. It's the 中 button in the header, or the last row of the menu on a phone. Every list on the site then prints the Chinese title and author beside the English: rankings, Browse results, search results and booklists, plus each booklist's Chinese name.

It's remembered in your browser, so it stays on until you turn it off. The tag index follows it too and shows each tag's Chinese name, which helps when you're trying to match a tag you saw on the platform itself.

With it on, a ranking board becomes a lookup table. Scan the Qidian monthly votes for the characters you recognise from a cover, and you've found your book without typing anything.

From the raw to a translation

Every book page has one main button, and it reads one of two ways.

Read the translation appears when RandomTranslator, our sister site, has the novel translated, in full or as a preview. It opens the novel there, in a new tab.

Request a translation appears when it doesn't. It opens RandomTranslator's request form with the novel's Chinese title and author already filled in, so you don't have to copy anything. The button is left out for a book its platform no longer carries, since there would be no chapters to translate.

Either way you leave DaoSearch to read. This site is the index: it tells you the book exists, what it is and where it lives.

The short version

1. Search the English title. If nothing fits, stop rewording.
2. Find the Chinese title on whatever site you read the translation on, and paste that.
3. Or paste the platform link, or search the author.
4. On the book page, copy the Chinese title and follow Source to the raw.
5. Check "Also on" for other platforms carrying it.
6. Use the main button to read or request a translation.

And if the book really isn't here, it may be a print edition, a very new book, or on a platform we don't list. The search guide has the full checklist, and the Report link on any book page is there for the ones we got wrong. How reports work.

Explore the catalogue: Qidian (novels, rankings, stats); Fanqie (novels, rankings, stats); JJWXC (novels, rankings, stats); Faloo (novels, rankings, stats); Qimao (novels, rankings, stats); Zongheng (novels, rankings, stats).