I’m Not Xi Shi

This is a down-to-earth, healing work of fiction that slowly unfurls a panorama of folk customs. Unlike the loud, flashy cultivation fantasies about transmigrating to another world, it is a more niche read. The novel makes extensive use of Wenzhou dialect, and follows a woman from Nanxi and the rural people around her as they grow up and make their way from the countryside to the city at the end of the last century. Against the backdrop of urbanization, it brings to life the struggles and breakthroughs of ordinary people. Like Nanxi people, be independent; swim upstream, and there you will find fragrant fish. The early part recalls The Sorrows of Young Werther, the middle part is like a splash-ink jianghu tale set in Shanghai, and by the end, the heroine may as well be Xi Shi herself.