General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Yu Zui (余罪)

Yu Zui (余罪) is a 2016 Chinese crime and suspense web drama produced by iQiyi, New Classics Media, and Zeus Entertainment, adapted from Chang Shuxin's (常书欣) novel of the same name. It follows Yu Zui, a slacker police academy student who is pushed into an undercover assignment inside a drug trafficking organization, and stars Zhang Yishan, Chang Rong, Wu You, and Zhang Jincheng.¹ Season 1 premiered on iQiyi on May 23, 2016, and season 2 followed in June of the same year; the two seasons together run 24 episodes of about 45 minutes each.¹^•²

Key fact	Detail
Original title	余罪 (Yu Zui), also the protagonist's name and a legal term for undisclosed offenses³
Source	Adapted from Chang Shuxin's web novel of the same name, about 2.9 million characters long³
Broadcast	Season 1 from May 23, 2016; season 2 from June 2016; 24 episodes, 45 minutes each, on iQiyi¹^•²
Main cast	Zhang Yishan as Yu Zui; Chang Rong as Xu Pingqiu; Wu You as Lin Yujing; Zhang Jincheng as Fu Guosheng⁴
Production	Director Zhang Rui; screenwriters Shen Rong, Zhang Shidong, and Jiang Wuji; producer Zhang Yuxin; filmed in Shenzhen¹^•⁴
Viewership	Over 3 billion cumulative views by July 14, 2016; 31.8 billion (3.18 billion in Western numbering) at finale per iQiyi; over 4.2 billion per the producer's prospectus⁵^•⁶
Awards	Golden Budo Award for Best Web Drama (2016); top 10 web drama at the 2016 China Pan-Entertainment Index Ceremony; Golden Lotus Outstanding Web Drama at the 7th Macau International TV Festival¹

Spoilers

Premise and source novel

The drama's title is the protagonist's name and also a legal concept. The author explained that "yu zui" (余罪) refers to offenses a suspect has concealed and not yet confessed to the authorities.³ In the story, Yu Zui is a police academy student, nicknamed "Jianren Yu" (贱人余, roughly "scoundrel Yu"), who enters a special selection exercise and is then placed undercover in a drug trafficking ring, where he encounters a series of dangerous situations.¹ The provincial criminal investigation chief Xu Pingqiu chooses him precisely because he thinks and acts like a street hustler rather than a conventional officer; in the novel, Xu half-coerces and half-deceives Yu Zui into the undercover role after losing more than one informant to the same trafficking organization.⁷

The novel was already a phenomenon before adaptation. In December 2013, CCTV's News Liveroom covered the book's popularity, and serving police officers joined online discussions of its plot developments.⁸ Chang Shuxin, born in 1975, has said the novel's detailed depiction of criminal psychology and gang structure drew on his own year spent in a detention center after a robbery conviction in his youth, as well as real cases told to him by police officers.³^•⁹ The television adaptation rights were sold in 2013 for 600,000 yuan, a price the author described as low; production was delayed because of the perceived censorship risk of the crime genre.³

Production

New Classics Media, a traditional television drama producer behind titles such as Mr. Right and Ruyi's Royal Love in the Palace, acquired the novel's rights in 2014 and made the project its first commercial web drama; iQiyi then included it in its "super web drama" program. Principal photography began in May 2015 and lasted more than 110 days.¹⁰ The total production cost was reported at just over 3 million yuan, a modest budget that the drama outperformed commercially.¹¹

Director Zhang Rui, a Beijing Film Academy graduate, has said the screenplay was polished with his writers against the structural model of classic American series, and that the show's broad framework referenced Breaking Bad and 24.¹² He had planned the city atmosphere after Gotham, but budget limits forced all shooting into the outskirts of Shenzhen, and he estimated that less than a tenth of the camera setups and shot types he wanted were achieved. His cut ran 30 episodes; the producer had six cut for iQiyi's scheduling and format requirements, which he blamed for plot holes in season 2.¹² The 24 episodes took about two years from script to screen, longer than some television productions.¹³

Release and viewership

Season 1 went out on iQiyi from May 23, 2016 under a membership-first model: VIP members could watch all 12 episodes at once while non-members waited. Within 72 hours of release the season's view count passed 100 million, and mobile views exceeded 60 million in the same window.³^•¹ Season 2 was scheduled for June 13 but was moved up a day after the complete season leaked online; the leaked episodes drew 165 million views in three days, and the author publicly blamed piracy for damaging the series.³

The show's commercial performance set records for a Chinese-made web drama at the time. By July 14, 2016, cumulative views exceeded 3 billion; iQiyi put the final figure at 3.18 billion when season 2 finished its free release on July 13, with a daily average above 40 million views.¹^•⁵ New Classics Media's prospectus stated that Yu Zui was the first web drama to pass 3 billion views before all episodes had been released, and that its cumulative clicks had since exceeded 4.2 billion, making it one of the most-viewed domestic pure web dramas to that date.⁶ iQiyi reported that about 40 percent of the show's audience was female, which it attributed to the "tender tough guy" positioning developed from pre-production market research.⁵

Reception

Critical response was strong for season 1 and cooler for season 2. At broadcast, Douban ratings stood at 8.3 for season 1 and 7.0 for season 2, with most criticism aimed at plot holes in the second season; by 2024 the season 1 score was 8.4 from about 250,000 users and season 2 stood at 7.7.¹²^•¹⁴ Commentators credited Zhang Yishan's performance as the foul-mouthed, streetwise undercover officer with shedding his child-star image from the sitcom Home with Kids and with grounding the police hero as an ordinary, flawed figure rather than a righteous archetype.¹⁵ Critics also noted the show's structural choice: it emphasized psychological contest between police and criminals over case-of-the-week deduction, and iQiyi framed it as an anti-genre take on the police procedural.⁵

The drama's success had industry effects. It was credited with helping drive iQiyi membership growth, and with prompting a wave of suspense and crime web drama adaptations, including Ten Deadly Sins, Medical Examiner Dr. Qin, and Ming Dynasty Antiques Bureau, that entered production lists in its wake.⁸^•¹⁵ Zeus Entertainment, one of the production companies, later announced plans for a Yu Zui film through its film subsidiary.¹⁶ Some original-novel readers objected that the adaptation compressed roughly a tenth of the book, shifted focus toward romance, and softened the protagonist's edge.¹⁷

Removal and return

In September 2016, Yu Zui was taken offline along with several other popular web dramas, including Master Devil Do Not Kiss Me-era contemporaries Mie Zui Shi and Darkener 2. iQiyi stated that the removal, effective 9:00 a.m. on September 18, 2016, was for content adjustment under relevant policy, with a return date to be announced; iQiyi founder and CEO Gong Yu joked publicly that the title character "doesn't look like a proper police officer."¹⁸ The series returned to iQiyi in 2024, with both seasons restored and drawing renewed attention on release.¹⁴

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Sp to Z

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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