Pseudotranslation is a product of the translator’s preconception and manipulation of the collective imagination of a foreign culture and a reflection of stereotypes held by local readers. Instead of criticizing a work’s lack of authenticity, we can attempt to understand how contemporary readers see a foreign culture by “decoding” a pseudotranslation. Anarchist fiction, detective stories, knight-errant novels, and sentimental novels that were enthusiastically translated into Chinese during the late Qing and early Republican periods became important sources of inspiration for the young pseudotranslator Zhou Shoujuan. In his copious translations of Western literature, there were at least seven stories which he confirmed as pseudotranslations, such as “The Blood of Mandarin Ducks,” “The Story of a Filial Son’s Blood,” “The Maid in Green Gown,” “The Blind Anarchist,” etc. This paper takes these stories as the major texts for analysis and tries to discern the paradigms and connotations in them. In these works, the mask of translation, as it were, secured a wide space for Zhou’s literary creativity. As a result, he was able to freely mingle different types of characters and archetypes from various Chinese and Western fiction in order to develop new genres that fit his idea of an exotic yet ethical “Western story.” This paper investigates how Zhou appropriated the collective imagination of the West during the late Qing period and how he reshaped it according to his own fantasies and moral standards. During this particular kind of “cultural negotiation,” Zhou expressed his love of fantasy and propagated his ethical ideals. The significant qualities of his later works were thus established.