Sweet Dreams of Bygone Years

A story from the 1980s, purely about ideals, yet filled with endless emotional entanglements. Set against the backdrop of the restoration of the college entrance exams, this book tells the story of a single father who hides his dream of going to college and places his hopes in his daughter, as well as the coming-of-age and educational journey of a girl from a single-parent family. The book is divided into seven parts. Part One, The Young Shoot, is about a city full of young talents troubled by wind and rain, while shepherd's purse blooms in spring by the creek. Part Two, Storms of the Mortal World, is about travelers flying south, losing one another amid wind and rain. Part Three, Growing Resolve, is about searching among the cold branches, refusing to roost, and feeling the chill of a lonely sandbar. Part Four, The Wish to Give Oneself, is about who could say that idle feelings have long since been cast aside? Each spring, the same melancholy returns. Part Five, Friends and Poetry, is about how many spring dreams have filled the pages of history, and how many brilliant talents have appeared in the mortal world. There is no need to fret or plan. Take what the present has to offer. Part Six, Friendship and Love, is about taking up a colorful brush to write new lines of heartbreak. How much idle sorrow is there, you ask? A riverbank of misty grass, a city full of drifting willow fluff, and rain in the season when plums ripen. Part Seven, Dreaming Another's Dream, is about plum blossoms falling by the myriad from tangled branches, still full of longing as they turn like snow in the wind. I lean on the railing for a moment, but you are nowhere to be seen. I wipe away my tears with silk and think of you again and again.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.