This is a spicy critical realism novella, telling the ironic story of Wu Guanggui, a "morally unworthy" man, from glory to disillusionment.
Wu Guanggui grew up under the influence of his mother Zhang Hongshu. Zhang Hongshu has a fierce and flamboyant personality, loves to brag, acts in a high-profile manner, and controls her silent husband to death. Wu Guanggui inherited all her skills - eating shit to save face, telling lies, never fulfilling promises, and treating others with hypocrisy. With his diligent disguise and eloquent words, he captured his well-off colleague Le Yangyang, and with the help of his father-in-law's connections, he jumped from warehouse manager to business manager, and he was very proud of himself for a time. However, he was lustful, jealous of talents, and overjoyed at success. Eventually, it came to light that he asked for kickbacks and embezzled public funds. He was fired from the company and kicked out by his wife.
Since then, he has been on a downward spiral: his job search has been hit by obstacles due to his reputation being ruined, he has been frustrated and lost all his money in small business, he has relied on two women to make ends meet, and he has used up his last bit of credibility at the card table and in illicit relationships. The mother went out to brag about her son's "big project" until his death, but the father remained silent until his death. After his parents passed away one after another, Wu Guanggui, who was in his early forties, put on a faded security uniform and continued to brag about his past glory at the guard box in the old community.
The novel uses "lamp" as a metaphor throughout - the lamp that "brings glory to the ancestors" in the mother's mouth, the illusory lamp piled up with lies, eventually goes out one after another. The author uses a calm and restrained writing style to depict a typical image swallowed up by vanity and lies, and writes the ugliest and most accurate footnote for "If virtue is not matched, there will be disaster."
