Jiangwanfu is a port in the south of the Yangtze River that has been washed away by tides and times. Lin Jinzhao's printing shop "Wanyoutang" is sandwiched between a teahouse and an iron shop. It prints wedding invitations and longevity couplets during the day and secretly prints brochures at night. Daughter Lin Yuelan grew up between private schools, girls' schools and the streets, and saw how words and blood overlap. From the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, foreign trains entered the city, gunshots and whistles were heard, old scriptures and meanings fell apart, and new words and phrases rushed into the streets. Chen Hai, the dock foreman, Meng Xuesong, who joined the army, Xu Zhiqing, who returned from studying in Japan, and Qin Xiu, who sang adagio on the stage, were brought together by the tide, and then separated by the tide. Some people held down the running drum with their hands, some ran their fingertips over the newly cast characters, some shouted hotly into their throats, and some sang softly broken old words. They thought they could stabilize the times by holding on to a piece of faith, but later they realized that when the tide ebbs and flows, the strength and softness of the human heart are the only boards that can float.
