A tourist was taking photos outside Cha's former residence in Jiaxing, East China's Province on Wednesday. (Photo: VCG)

Chinese people mourned the death of Cha Leung-yung, a renowned Chinese martial arts novelist whose pen name is Jin Yong, highlighting how the Wuxia (chivalrous) spirit and his works' devotion to the nation influenced Chinese both at home and overseas.

Cha died in a Hong Kong hospital on Tuesday.

A Global Times reporter went to the Hong Kong Heritage Museum early Wednesday where a Jin Yong Gallery is displaying more than 300 items featuring Cha's early career. 

Inside the gallery, people can view Cha's original manuscripts, watch scenes from TV series and films adapted from Cha's novels, listen to songs from the TV series using headsets provided by the museum, and even play an interactive game to travel with the novels' characters.

A museum employee told the Global Times on Wednesday that they talked to Cha's wife and may prepare special arrangements at the gallery. 

Foreigners also visited the gallery. A Swedish family said that they love martial arts, and fell in love with Cha after viewing each exhibit. Cha's novel Legends of the Condor Heroes was first published in English in February by British publishing house MacLehose.

Cha's death has aroused attention from all circles in the country. Sales of his works spiked over 120 times on jd.com, a major shopping website in China, by 8pm Tuesday, an hour after news of Cha's death swept through Chinese media, news portal chengdu.cn reported Wednesday. 

An employee of a bookshop in Shenyang, Northeast China's Liaoning Province, is setting up a special corner for Cha's Wuxia novels on Wednesday. (Photo: VCG)

Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR), issued a statement late Tuesday expressing deep sorrow over Cha's passing away, the Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

She called him "a learned man and an acclaimed writer of martial arts novels," saying that "Cha's works inherited the tradition of Chinese classics which integrated history and culture." 

Wang Zhimin, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in the HKSAR, said in a statement on the office website that 

"Cha's works, with devotion to family and nation, have influenced the Chinese at home and abroad in a profound way."

Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, told a conference on Wednesday that "Cha is a great writer respected on both sides of the Taiwan Straits. We mourn Cha together and should also carry Chinese culture forward together."

Wuxia spirit

Some local residents came to the gallery to mourn Cha. Fifteen-year-old middle school student, Kin Yat, told the Global Times that he was impressed by the martial arts chivalry embodied in Cha's novels. 

Ko Ka-tsai, a Hong Kong resident who browsed through a few bookmarks and cloth printed with cartoon characters of Cha's novels in the gallery, said that he "learned from Cha's works that everyone has both strengths and weaknesses, and that we should make full use of our strengths."

"The man of chivalry is for the country and the people" is the spirit of Cha's works, Wang Xiaolei, otherwise known as "sixgod" on social media, said in an article posted on his Wechat account on Wednesday. Cha expressed sympathy for the people in his works, the article said. 

Wang's article was viewed over 1.3 million times on Weibo as of press time.