I was once the simple boy who knew the best about water on the Wanjiang River, and I was also a newbie in the casinos in Beiping who spent a lot of money.
The college dream that my father had propped up with a fishing boat began to crumble the moment I stepped into the ten-mile foreign market - the silk and satin wrapped up the simple soul, the exchange numbers jumped and swallowed up the blood and sweat of the silkworm farmers, and when the champagne bubbles in the ballroom annihilated the last local accent, I saw my unrecognizable face on the bankruptcy notice.
With a scalpel-like pen, Zhang Henshui cuts through the glitz and glamor of the Republic of China: this is not a fairy tale of rebirth and counterattack, but a fable of a peasant boy sinking into the fantasy sea of the city. When all the prosperity built at the expense of others collapses, can that conscience that has been pawned long ago still be redeemed?
