This is the first half of a Miao man's life: no halo, just the searing truth.
He never finished middle school, but struggled through the tides of the times: repairing phone motherboards and unlocking the bootloader on Xiaomi phones; driving for Didi, carrying all kinds of passengers through the streets at night and seeing the loneliest lights in the city. He is a craftsman and an observer, used to breaking down the world through first principles and mentally rehearsing every possible outcome.
He was once married. After his divorce, he raised his daughter and searched for a new direction under the crushing weight of life. He borrowed his cousin's Canon 750D and relied on an old friend's iPhone 11, creating relentlessly despite his straitened circumstances. He learned photography and editing, trying to cut his life into a documentary about an ordinary person.
He is passionate yet clear-eyed. One look can make his heart race, and he will replay it over and over in his mind, torn between fantasy and reason. He can act out an entire drama in his head while staring at a chat window, then use the coldest logic to give himself a dignified ending.
Money is tight, and life is no easy ride, but he still lives, loves, and thinks with sincerity.
He turns every flutter of the heart, every bout of overthinking, every mistake into material for his writing; every fall, every time he gets back up, and every moment of clarity into life experience.
This book tells no earth-shattering legend.
It is about an ordinary man,
trying to live sincerely,
even when life does not treat him kindly.
It also wants to tell everyone like him:
We may be ordinary, but we deserve to be seen and treated with kindness.
This is not a novel.
It is the true story of a man's life, bought with the blood and tears of his first half-century.
