The topic chain is a frequently used structure in Chinese. In this article, its structural characteristics and its use in written narrative text are examined. Three major claims are made: (a) The topic of a chain does not have to overtly occur in the chain-initial clause as commonly believed; (b) depending on the context, a zero noun phrase (NP) in a sentence-initial clause may be coreferential either cataphorically with an overt topic NP within the same sentence, or anaphorically with an NP in the previous sentence; and (c) clauses with sentence/chain-initial zero NPs typically form background text. These findings suggest that the current definition of topic chains be reconsidered.