This novel follows Lin Wanxing, a nineteen-year-old girl from Hunan who heads south full of hope to find work. Day after day, she inserts components on an electronics factory assembly line, writes in her diary beneath a camphor tree, and believes she has found spring in a brief romance. The factory's relentless pace and the collapse of her love gradually drag her into the abyss. On the eve of the 2003 Spring Festival, she hangs herself beneath the camphor tree. This is the story of a girl crushed by life, and a collective elegy for a generation of migrant women swept up in the tide of industrialization.
