Night Watcher: The Third Uncle I've Never Understood

Heavy as earth, scorching as blood. Open it and witness how an outcast used his backbone to uphold the vault of human decency, and how a tiny flame in the dark illuminated the long road between life and death. This is more than a novel: it is a bronze epic dedicated to all those who have burned the midnight oil.

The novel opens with a humble village funeral. Liu Zhiqiang, a wealthy businessman newly returned from the provincial capital, looks down on his uncle Liu Jianshe, who lived a life of poverty. But in the dilapidated house, he discovers a mysterious "ledger," densely recording thirty years of school tuition paid for the village children. Every entry is clearly marked "paid in full." More shocking still, the final page records the debt he owed for stealing a pig as a child.

With the arrival of Mo, the woman who runs a street stall, the cruel truth about his uncle is laid bare: he once took the blame for a killing committed by his nephew in a bid to protect him, bearing the stigma through ten years in prison; he invested the profits from his wonton stall and his own sweat in cultivating a muddy wasteland, saving every penny to build a fund for students; he was a martyr who saw through the illusion of taking shortcuts and chose poverty over crooked paths. And Mo, a silent woman who put thirty years of her youth on the line, guarded the secret and the spark of educational aid until the end of her life.