"Modern Chinese prose" inherits the munificent prose tradition on the one hand, and shows the perceptual mode of the new era on the other. Thus "modernity" and "Chineseness" construct handsomely the prose theory today. They do not necessarily exclude each other, however. The history of traditional prose can still be used for the reference of the contemporary prose. This study is thus focused as I choose three important concepts in literary tradition to observe the development and variation of modern prose. My discussion is divided into three subjects as follows: 1. "Ben-se" (本色): by taking gu-wen and xiao-pin as the y-axis and modern poetry and fiction as the x-axis, to discuss the characteristics of modern prose as a genre. 2. "Po-ti" (破體): by taking the appearance of shi-hua (詩化) as a nucleus, to discuss the breakthrough of modern prose in form. 3. "Chu-wei" (出位): by taking the spirit of shi (士) as a principle, to discuss the expansion of connotation in modern prose.