The Ups and Downs of the Past

Law student Zhao Zhenbang is trapped between the vast gulf separating textbooks from reality. On a mound outside Anding Gate, he gazes at the dreary sky, his mind a tangled knot. Then he meets Su Wanqing, a young woman torn between the marriage her aunt has arranged for her and the desires of her own heart. Her smile always stops halfway, like a daffodil blooming on a windowsill: quiet and fragrant, with a hint of bitterness.

In the alleys of Beiping, beneath the overpass, and by the light of a kerosene lamp, they begin a life that is poor but warm. He copies case files at the courthouse; she writes novels by lamplight. He writes, “A family of five has to eat,” while she writes a book called “Pedestrians on the Bridge.” They meet Old Wang, who pulls a rickshaw; young Lin Hai, who dreams of becoming a journalist; a middle-school teacher who lectures on Lu Xun; and Principal Lu, who spent his whole life running a school. They are people with iron in their spines, people who “won't walk away.”

On the night the guns of Lugou Bridge thunder, the two take each other's hands and walk into the morning light of Beiping.

Two people, one city, and a road traveled slowly, but never abandoned.