Xiaodie, a 22-year-old girl majoring in Chinese, and Niu Wanle, a 40-year-old grassroots civil servant, engage in a soul game with inverted identities in a world where virtuality and reality intersect. Xiaodie is curious and cynical, while Niu Wanle is decadent and numb, unable to change his destiny. The two play roles opposite to their own personalities on the Internet, interpreting a story about a lolita and an uncle.
The novel uses magical reality to construct a dual narrative time and space: in reality, Niu Wanle is a model clerk who abides by the system and kills his ideals in the pile of documents; on the Internet, he transforms into a prodigal to release his suppressed self. Xiaodie put on the mask of gentleness and intellectuality, and collided with Niu Wanle's dual personality in cyberspace.
The work uses mirror narrative to cut into the social fabric, not only showing the survival strategy of Generation Z using cynicism to fight anxiety, but also describing the mental pain of the middle-aged group. Niu Wanle's polyphonic image of tolerance in reality and indulgence on the Internet reflects the confrontation between traditional values and post-modern ideological trends. When the role-playing gradually gets out of control, the game that started as a virtual game turns into a soul torture questioning the essence of existence.
The novel breaks the stereotypes of intergenerational narratives, uses black humor to deconstruct the imagination of "uncle lolita", and wraps the social allegorical core of "Beijing Fold" under the "Lolita" style shell. It accurately captures the Internet subculture, understands the survival dilemma of the system, and completes the collective portrait of contemporary people's spiritual dilemma in absurdity and reality.
