In the context of the late Qing “Fiction Revolution”, overseas maritime narratives served as a vital medium for reshaping the national spirit. Focusing on Hanghai Shuqi (The Story of Sindbad the Sailor in One Thousand and One Nights), this study employs comparative imagology to explore how the translator, Qian Kai, endowed Sinbad with an “afterlife”. The research shows that Sinbad’s transformation from a profit-seeking merchant into an adventurous hero is articulated through an ethical reconfiguration that combines righteousness and profit, the penetration of statecraft discourse into the narrative, and a spiritual turn toward modern subjectivity. This reconstruction is essentially a literary practice aimed at reforming national character under the imperative of national survival, reflecting the enlightenment-oriented quest to reshape worldviews and subjectivity in modern China, and offering an imagological lens for re-evaluating the cultural transformation of modern China.