"Under the Rules" is a long-form realist novel depicting life at the grassroots level in the late 1990s. The story follows Yi Wei, a normal-school graduate whose idealism collides with harsh reality when he is assigned a job after graduation. With no connections or influential backing, he is “advised” to go to a remote village. Unwilling to let fate dictate his future, he is drawn into the hidden currents of county politics by an old hand at the grassroots level. From school to township, from watching on the sidelines to being dragged into the fray, Yi Wei struggles to learn a different set of rules for survival amid a tangled web of documents, personal connections, and power. This is not only the story of a young man’s growth, but also a vivid portrait of the complex struggle between ideals and reality, and between what lies within the rules and beyond them.
