After graduating from college and eager to change jobs, He Jun signs up for Qing County’s college-graduate village official exam. Through a twist of fate, she joins the ranks of college-graduate village officials, beginning a career in the civil service, a line of work she had always disdained. Once she arrives in the township, He Jun discovers that civil service work, especially in the townships, is nowhere near as leisurely as people imagine or as the rumors suggest. Her years in the township give her a fresh understanding of rural life and township government. The “wealth” and “poverty,” “kindness” and “evil,” “honesty” and “deceit,” “truth” and “falsehood” she encounters in the countryside reveal the “lovable” and “detestable” sides of ordinary people’s nature. Relations among her township colleagues are not as harmonious as they seem on the surface, either. Hidden hierarchies, unspoken hostilities, and all manner of relationships that cannot be openly discussed make her realize just how complicated the workplace is. During her years in the township, He Jun goes from being an unofficial college-graduate village official to a formally appointed public institution employee. These changes in her status and work environment have a profound impact on her. Through the trials and hardships of working at the grassroots level, the young woman who once felt completely out of her depth gradually becomes a township official who can hold her own.
