This is a nontraditional Republican-era feel-good novel, the calm before the storm. It is a slow-building ensemble story, with cozy everyday moments at first and a tragic epic later on.
There is no tragic warlord romance or scheming, and every couple is monogamous. It is a little like a young woman in the Republican era recording her everyday life, until the wheels of history turn and gradually tear her peaceful world apart.
Ye Xiangxiang transmigrates to the Republican era with no grand ambitions. She just wants to live comfortably as a rich heiress.
Every day, she has three things on her mind: how to get some money to the Red Army, how to eat something delicious, and how to coax her sharp-tongued but soft-hearted beloved into going to Chongqing.
She thinks this is a pretty good life. Seeing things from the sidelines makes it easy for her to keep her head down and stay safe.
But later, her pilot friend, who never got the chance to go to war, the dazzling performer on the opera stage, and so many other people she knows all head silently toward their own ends.
Only then does she realize that no one on this land can stand apart from it, herself included.
