Zi'an Wei

Born in Houguan, Fujian, Wei Xiuren was a Qing-dynasty novelist who wrote under the style name Zi'an. Sources found for this request identify him as the author of Hua Yue Hen, the work for which he is chiefly remembered.

He earned the provincial degree in 1846 but did not pass the highest metropolitan examination. Later he served in the entourage of official Wang Qingyun, spent time in Taiyuan and Sichuan, and also worked as a tutor and academy lecturer.

Accounts describe him as a writer of broad learning whose other writings did not circulate as widely. Because the available sources located here do not agree with the dates given in the prompt, I have avoided repeating them exactly; the material I found instead places his life in the late Qing period and records his death in the early 1870s.