Photos show scenes from the popular drama Young and Bloody, which is adapted from Kong Ergou's successful online novel, Once Upon A Time in the Northeast. Photo provided to China Daily

Novels are taking center stage－literally.

Young and Bloody is the latest written work adapted into a theater performance－and to great acclaim. More than 3,500 theatergoers in Beijing bought seats within the five days following its Oct 26 debut.

The show put on by Beijing-based entertainment group Joyway's affiliate theater Monster will next tour the country, starting with Heilongjiang province's capital Harbin, Liaoning province's capital Shenyang and Shanghai.

Joyway's founder and artistic director Sun Henghai isn't surprised by the popularity of the performance, which his team spent three years developing. That's largely because it's based on the wildly  successful online novel Once Upon A Time in the Northeast.

The story was first published in 2006 as one of the country's most popular "Internet novels". It quickly received more than 20 million reads. There were more than 200,000 preorders before the hard copy came out in 2009 and topped the best-seller list after publication.

The plot centers on a northeastern China gang and spans two decades after the group's 1986 formation. It delves into the friendships, romantic pursuits and dreams of the gangsters at a time of tremendous social transformation.

"I was shocked by the writer's acute observations and his accounts of individuals during a time of social change when I read the novel years ago," Sun says.

He became a fan of the author, whose pen name is Kong Ergou, after reading the novel.

Yet Once Upon A Time in the Northeast is just one best-selling literary work adapted to theater.