There was always a saying in the Wanli era, "Life is like a play, play is like life." Liu Aixi used to think it was a sarcastic comment from a scholar. It wasn't until she woke up in a tile house in the south of Suzhou City with half a piece of dusty osmanthus cake in her mouth that she understood the biting chill in these words.
She had a headache as if she had been pressed by Hyundai's KPIs for three years. She struggled to sit up and saw the blue-grey tile roof, faded red silk hanging on the beams, and the wind coming in through the damaged window paper, bringing with it a damp musty smell. The bed beneath her was a hard wooden bed with a burlap mattress, which was a far cry from the sofa bed she lay on while working overtime at the MCN institution last night.
