This is a realistic novel set in Jiangnan and Shanghai in the first half of the twentieth century. Shen Zicheng, a young man from Yanbu in the late Qing Dynasty, stepped into the modern era amid the death of his father and the ups and downs of his family business. He witnessed the great social changes from the Xinhai Revolution, warlords, industrial unrest, to the Anti-Japanese War and the Civil War. He made a living in a newspaper office in Shanghai, fell in love with Xu Yiyun, a female teacher and student, and met Li Bo, a dock worker. The three of them watched, departed, and met again in the smoke, dust and lights of the city. The newspaper pages are clipped truths, the classroom blackboards are clear but fragile ideals, and the dock cranes are the common language of sweat and blood. Bombing and white terror forced them to choose: silence, resistance or compromise. Victory in the war does not mean Qingming. Inflation, speculation, old accounts and new accounts are intertwined. When the new map is slowly spread on the table, the dust of the past is still spinning in the light. They struggle between turbulence and daily life, between conscience and survival, lost and found in love, and hesitant in the face of the rupture of kinship and class. This book outlines the growth and fission of the characters with detailed brushwork, and uses real and complex emotions and historical texture to explore the weight of ordinary people in the great era.
