Lin Xi, a 33-year-old middle school teacher, is a "small town problem solver" who has a pessimistic attitude towards marriage. In order to escape the trauma of her original family and the endless pressure to get married, she reached a "strategic cooperation" with 36-year-old programmer Chen Mo: pretending to be a couple in exchange for family peace and personal breathing space.
Chen Mo was gentle and considerate, impeccable, but there was always a layer of polite alienation between the two of them. After observing dinners and gatherings of friends in a shared apartment, Lin Xi keenly noticed that there was a deep tacit understanding between Chen Mo and his cheerful male roommate Xu Lang that transcended friendship and did not allow outsiders to interfere.
At the same time, Lin Xi still has a silent secret love for Zhou Yu, a colleague of Sunshine. When the illusion of a cooperative relationship, the secret authenticity and the ignorant affection are intertwined, three kind-hearted ordinary people struggle hard between social expectations and their own reality. This song begins as a "concerto" of lies, and how will it eventually lead to a true echo?
Purpose: This book aims to explore how we should deal with and make choices when traditional social disciplines conflict with individual true selves.
By depicting different forms of intimate relationships (seemingly incompatible marriages, invisible same-sex couples, formal relationships starting from agreements, hopeless secret love), it deeply analyzes the huge pull between family responsibilities, social gaze and personal happiness of modern people.
The core of the novel is not criticism, but a deep understanding and tolerance. It tries to convey that whether you choose to obey, resist, or find a middle way, behind it are the difficult trade-offs that individuals make in specific situations. True growth and liberation come from facing the truth in your heart, having the courage to not violate your heart, and understanding and respecting the choices of yourself and others. In the end, we may not be able to change the world, but we can bravely build our own, real life order.