At the end of the Ming Dynasty and the beginning of the Qing Dynasty, wars broke out, dynasties changed, and the world collapsed. A group of low-level people - the wandering beggar Tao Sanshui, the clever weaver Du Xiaoman, the down-and-out martial artist Gao Dazhuang, the failed scholar Zhou Xiuzhu, and the wandering doctor Sun Granny - were stirred by fate in the turbulent situation. They either went into exile, were lured into the quagmire, or joined the struggle at the bottom. The whole book is narrated from multiple perspectives and revolves around the intertwining of their respective sufferings, encounters and growth. The characters form a warm and supportive community due to their intertwined destinies. They use humor and self-deprecation as weapons to satirize the absurdity of troubled times, find human warmth in the midst of violence, and achieve their own humble epic in desperate situations. The three volumes respectively tell the story of the escape and encounters in the early days of exile, the unity and differentiation in troubled times, and the ultimate redemption and growth. In the end, although they did not change the flow of history, they completed their own epic as ordinary people.
