The aftermath of the Xinhai Revolution has just settled, and between the south of the Yangtze River and the sea, the tide rises and falls day and night. Lu Beichuan, a boy from a poor family in Suzhou, with his imperial examinations abolished and his father about to be seriously ill, took a box of manuscripts and a few pages of IOUs with him and went to Shenjiang along the canal to work as a newspaper boy, forcing himself to see the world between the typeface and the kerosene lamp. He meets Shen Xinghe, a girl from the night school at the cotton mill, who has fire in her eyes and knows how to hide the fire; he meets Zhou Yintang, the big shopkeeper of the Zhou family's silk and satin shop, who is well-dressed and thoughtful; there is also Zhao Xinghuai, a police adjutant who walks on the edge of power, Song Zhao, a Chinese detective in the patrol room of the concession, and Tang Qiubai, a female doctor who provides free clinics for workers. More than ten years of changes, from rice shortages to strikes, from May 4th to May 30th, there were gunshots on the streets and lights on the doorsteps; between the neon lights of the banquet and the dust of the pier, they were tied to each other and chose sides, trying to leave a clear footprint in front of the torrent of history. Some people clenched their fists, some folded paper into boats; some were knocked over by waves, and some learned to swim. Finally, in the night of 1927, the wind suddenly picked up and the door bolt rang softly. Everyone's fate was like the exposed rocks after the tide receded, cold and dim, but each had its own shape.
