This is a long novel about small towns and big rivers, fate and times. The story takes place in a dock city on a tributary of the Yangtze River, where salt transportation, gangs, student societies, war and famine have all taken turns in half a century. Lin Zeyuan was born in the family of a small official in the Salt Education Bureau, and felt ordinary, but was constantly pushed to the edge of choice by the times; Zhao Yunxiu walked from a tailor shop to a girls' school, and then to the podium, stitched together with his family's fate and new knowledge and ideals; He Jingtang ran away as a young man, enlisted in the army, and was already an important member of the military when he returned home. He has compassion and cold iron in his heart. The relationship between the three people sometimes embraces each other like a tide, and sometimes slips like quicksand. Behind it is reflected the vicissitudes of businessmen and the New Deal, warlords and the market, the war of resistance and reorganization. The novel uses real writing to describe the characters' thoughts and choices in detail, laying out a period of human history that has no fantasy or magic, but is cut to the bone. The wind rises and falls on the river, and the lights on the north bank flicker on and off. Each faint beam of light does not belong to anyone alone, but together, they illuminate the folds and pain of this land.
