Online narrator revels in new chapter in life

An ex-pharmacy worker is now a leading internet storyteller. Cao Yin reports.

Sha Wei used to run a village drugstore in East China. When business was slow, he could sometimes go days without talking to anyone.

Today, as a popular online audio storyteller, his broadcasts are heard by more than 6.5 million listeners.

His deep, dulcet and modulated tones have helped him amass a legion of fans, who tune in to storytelling apps to hear him narrate tales of fantasy, horror and suspense.

The change began one day in 2013 after Sha, from Heze, Shandong province, finished a casual chat with a friend he had met through an online game.

The conversation resulted in Sha volunteering to read and record stories for the acquaintance.

"He told me he liked listening to stories, but he couldn't find anyone to read them to him. I was available at the time and was also interested in doing it," said the 35-year-old, whose formal education ended when he graduated from high school.

"I never thought a decision I made just for fun could take me on such a journey."

Midnight transformation

Following the chat, Sha paid about 300 yuan ($46) for a microphone and a sound card for his PC, and started a new life of selling medicines by day and recording books at night.

At 9 pm every day, when the pharmacy closed, he sat down at the microphone, opened a novel and pressed the "record" button. Then he became the characters in the book, playing all the roles by varying his vocal delivery. When he finished each section, he sent the audio file he had recorded to his friend.

He recalled that it wasn't easy for someone without broadcast training to assume a range of voices and express the different personalities of the characters, but he kept trying and enjoyed the experience.

"I was delighted when my friend told me I had done a good job. What made me even happier was when I found that someone else had listened to my audio files after I uploaded them online," he said, adding that the discovery cheered him up, fed his ego and brought him a sense of achievement.

He practiced Putonghua (standard Mandarin) to tone down his Shandong accent and ensure correct pronunciation, and he also spent a lot of time reading and studying the novel he was narrating at the time.

His "homework" brought each character to life and gave his listeners more joy in his work.

Sometimes, he even devised several ways to play out a scene in a book and recorded them repeatedly.

"I wanted to select the best version for my listeners," he said, adding that an audio file lasting three or four hours often took seven or eight hours to prepare and record.

Sometimes his interpretations were a little too realistic. He recalled how one night when he had finished recording a horror story, he was scared to go to the bathroom after listening to a playback of the work.