Little North of the Far South

The northern city of Linjiang is still wrapped in a thin chill. The ice on the moat has just melted, and broken shards drift slowly downstream, much like feelings that have yet to be spoken aloud. Brightly colored clothes are still a rare sight on the streets. Most people wear gray, blue, or black. Bicycle bells ring clatteringly across the city, the wooden doors of state-run shops creak open, and red slogans reading "Reform and Opening Up" and "Work Hard to Get Rich" are painted on the walls, fluttering in the wind.

It is an era of transition between the old and the new.

Educated youths are returning to the cities in droves, factories are reopening, and it is the third year since the college entrance exam was reinstated. Countless young people clutch their books as if they hold all the hope they need to change their fate. Some hammer steel in factories, some cultivate hope in the fields, some furiously scribble away in classrooms, and some secretly set up stalls on the street. Everything is waking up, everything is waiting, and everything is quietly undergoing earth-shaking changes.

And the story of Gu Zhengnan and Zhu Xiaobei officially begins in this gray yet vibrant little city.