TAIPEI/BEIJING, Dec. 4 (Xinhua) -- Qiong Yao, one of the bestselling Chinese romance writers, died in New Taipei City at the age of 86 on Wednesday.

According to the local police and fire department, the writer was found deceased after taking her own life at her residence.

The writer was born with the name Chen Zhe in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, in 1938 and moved to Taiwan with her parents in 1949.

Under the pseudonym Qiong Yao, she published a series of popular romance fictions since the 1960s.

Her books had been introduced to the mainland readers after the reform and opening up in the 1980s and gained great popularity. Her works were later adapted into films and TV dramas that captivated audiences on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

In a post mourning Qiong Yao's death, one of her loyal mainland readers said she wrote Chinese own "Romeo and Juliet."

The news of her death climbed up to the top trending topic on the popular microblogging site Weibo minutes after it broke. Within an hour or so, more than 1 billion views on relevant posts were recorded by Weibo.

Numerous netizens recalled dear childhood memories of watching the TV dramas adapted from her novels, such as "My Fair Princess" and "Romance in the Rain."

"Thank Aunt Qiong Yao for her tender but powerful writing and appealing adaption into TV dramas," one Weibo user wrote in a comment to the news report of her death.

On Xiaohongshu, a lifestyle social media platform popular on both the mainland and Taiwan, one user wrote, "I read all Qiong Yao's novels when I was in junior middle school. In those years when there was no mobile phone, her novels offered company and comfort to so many young girls throughout their adolescence."

People in the entertainment industry who used to work with Qiong Yao also wrote remembrance posts, and shared wishes for her to rest in peace. Enditem

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