This book assigns value to the concept of the System. It introduces its ideas through a gradually unfolding philosophical narrative, calling itself philosophical fantasy. The process of assigning value roughly goes as follows.
A System comes into being through several things, yet it is not confined to the realm of those things.
The Imperial Jade Seal was enough to drive Sun Jian wild, but it was ultimately just a means of establishing authority: a jade object inlaid with gold, transformed by the authority it conferred. The means of conferring that authority is assigning value. In capital markets, a common way to assign value is through price fluctuations, which signify productive capacity; the two are interconnected. If this connection breaks down in the real world, people will take up their pens to condemn the injustice.
Seeking a hidden meaning in vain, seeking a hidden meaning in vain, waiting in vain for meaning, searching in the dark for a voice.
A poem introduced in the book:
The pages are filled with wild boasts and frantic words, three or four lines of bluster that bring laughter and tears. Each scattered word chases after another, each pointed finger lands on a heartache. Why talk about inside or outside the System when you can't even free yourself? Yet you turn your eyes toward the world outside the System. Two sharp points meet; perhaps they do not belong together, and neither can tell whose place is whose. Humanity has long since lost the Way; it seems impossible to find anything left to say. The real and the illusory drift in confusion, false arguments cannot be distinguished, and reality lies torn apart beside them. In the end, it all comes down to two words: pain. Hardship leaves people powerless, unable to stand their ground. You, me, and them all sing, yet we are only drifting through life, treading lightly through boiling cold. In the end, the darkness remains empty in our hearts, and the burden is too much for people to bear.
