This is a novel about Shanghai and the times. Time passed from the late Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China. In the tide of change, docks and electric lights, boiling oil woks and roaring printing presses, old-fashioned merchants' abacus beads and the black lines of foreign language account books collided in the shadows of street corners. The protagonist Lin Shuyuan was born in a paper shop in Nanshi. His father surrounded his life in layers of rice paper fibers, while the city blew another kind of wind in his ears, dripping from the concession, from the factory building, and from the upstairs of the newspaper office, causing sleepless nights. He met Xu Qiaoyun, a woman who walked out of the computer room and sewing room. She wrapped the embers of the fire with her rough hands, and patiently described her future one by one. Chen Dapeng and comprador Duan Wenye at the dock each represent another path: one is roaring at the head of the tide, and the other is walking a tightrope on foreigners' ledgers. Fires, uprisings, strikes, purges and artillery fires, the black waves of history come one after another, and everyone retreats and then advances on their own shore. The novel uses detailed brushstrokes to describe families and streets, emotions and choices, showing people struggling to stretch themselves in the gaps of society. There is no legend, only the warmth and coldness of people's hearts, and the never-ending sound of the tide that echoes at the Huangpu River Estuary.
