Ah Cheng comments that since the 1980s, due to the relaxation of political control, there has been a great deal of space for the popular tradition, so that there is an enormous market for books like Su Tong's realist Wives and Concubines or Wang Shuo's satirical novels, and 1992 finally even saw the appearance of erotic novels like Decadent City.
阿城指出，八○年代以後，因為政權的放鬆，世俗傳統有很大的生存空間，這使得像蘇童的寫實作品《妻妾成群》、王朔的笑謔小說有很大的市場存在，似《廢都》這般的情色小說在九二年間也終於出現。