Love in the Courtyard: The Man Who Came Home on a Snowy Night

True revenge isn't killing your enemy with your own hands. It's letting them live, but making them live in hell.

Lu Jianguo: Thirty Years from “Knife” to “Tree”

In 1958, he was a “knife”: cold, sharp, with nothing but hatred in his eyes.

In 1965, he began turning into a “tree.” He stuck his knife in front of Xu Damao's grave and said, “I don't need it anymore.”

By 1995, he had become an old man who sat in the courtyard basking in the sun, watching the children run around and smiling happily.

Those thirty-seven years were a journey from “getting revenge” to “figuring out how to live.” As he put it himself: “Revenge isn't about killing people. It's about letting the living go on living well.”

Silly Zhu went from “foolish” to “awake.” He realized Yi Zhonghai had manipulated him for twenty years, that Yi Zhonghai was connected to his mother's death, and that his kindness had been exploited his whole life. But he didn't become another Lu Jianguo. He chose to forgive and to keep being kind.

Qin Huairu is the most complex character in the entire book. She is both a victimizer and a victim; she schemes against others, and life schemes against her. Her tears are genuine, and so are her schemes. But in the end, Lu Jianguo tells her, “That's all behind us now.”

Those words, “That's all behind us now,” are the compassion at the heart of the book.

Dahuang is the book's warmest image.

After Bang Geng broke its leg, Lu Jianguo rescued it. From then on, it looked at him with its damp eyes and stayed by his side for sixteen years. Dahuang couldn't speak, but its very presence told Lu Jianguo that the world held more than hatred. It also held things worth protecting.