China’s modernization has been marked by a critical examination of both native and foreign traditions. How can deep upheaval be harnessed creatively? How can new attitudes be formed by adapting and transforming cultural knowledge? The historical novel Wu Zixu (1946) by Feng Zhi (1905-93), the father of German studies in China and inventor of the Chinese sonnet, provides a superb example. Beyond revealing the enormous intellectual sophistication of Wu Zixu, this study also lays out a model of transepochal and transcontinental cultural transfer.