Over the course of three years, Huang studied the Book of Poetry, the Spring and Autumn Annals, the Book of History and the Four Books from cover to cover, and developed an especial fondness for the episodic chivalric novels that would be central to his later work.
三年期間，舉凡詩經、春秋、史記、四書等等無所不通，黃海岱尤其喜歡江湖俠義的章回小說，因此奠下深厚的「腹內」。