The novel tells the story of Lin Xiaotai, a girl born in a remote mountain village in western Hubei. In a poverty-stricken environment that favors boys over girls, with her extraordinary talent and tenacity, and with the weak arms of her mother and the silent sacrifice of her younger brother, she step by step from a junior high school in the county town to a university in the provincial capital, and then to an office building in a bustling city.
The work takes Lin Xiaotai's growth as the main line, and delicately depicts the warmth and warmth of people in rural China, the pain of urban-rural migration, and the identity and spiritual reconstruction of a woman from a lower-class background in the urban jungle. When she finally gained a foothold in the reinforced concrete city and looked back on the way she came, she realized that the mountain she had climbed over in eighteen years was not only a geographical coordinate, but also a chasm in the depths of her soul. This is not only her personal epic, but also a resonant song dedicated to all the children who struggle out of the soil and look for the stars under the city night sky.
