This essay focuses on reading Tang Xianzu, a prominent Chinese playwright in the Ming dynasty, as a Nietzschean “übermensch.” The controversial term “superman,” once misunderstood as connoting immoralism, nihilism and violence, will be re-investigated in terms of Walter Kaufmann's rendering as “overman.” This refers to an inner superior man who, without blindly following canonized beliefs, further overcomes illusory individual desires through artistic creation. Nietzsche's defiant philosophy of the übermensch will be paralleled to Tang's unconventional philosophy of qingzhi, which I interpret as a philosophy of self-transformation through love. I will discuss the similarities in their philosophies, their non-dualistic worldviews, and their conceptions of art as the most fundamental way of justifying our illusory and absurd life. Relevant historical and biographical evidence will also be used to support the thesis that the playwright Tang underwent a spiritual transformation from a chivalrous Neo-Confucianist to a “philosophical” rather than “religious” Daoist, one who devotes himself to the unorthodox southern drama to justify his illusory life, which again has obvious parallels with the Nietzschean notion of the übermensch.