Cao Hansheng was born in a small county in the north in 1978. He comes from an ordinary working-class family. He has a restrained and tolerant personality with a slight inferiority complex. He is used to compromise and self-consumption. He has been in county towns, prefecture-level cities, and provincial capitals throughout his life, and has worked in low-level occupations such as factory workers, sales, small vendors, and property security guards. The novel is based on "down-to-earth daily life" and does not deliberately exaggerate pathos. Instead, it uses daily necessities, personal relationships, workplace triviality, and emotional entanglements to implement 40 elements of life failure one by one, depicting Cao Hansheng's gradual collapse under the pressure of fate, character, choice, and environment. It not only shows the fragility and regret of individuals, but also reflects the survival dilemma of ordinary people in the context of the times.
