Twenty-five-year-old Lin Jing returned to China after working in the UK for many years due to the dual dilemma of visa and career. She was arranged by her mother to participate in an unwilling blind date. Thirty-year-old Gu Yuan had a stable job in the United States, but he briefly returned to China due to family pressure and was asked to "consider reality."
The occasion of their first meeting was restrained and dignified, their conversation brief and polite, without conflict or rapid emotional closeness. This is not an encounter for the purpose of love, but an attempt jointly promoted by family and class.
As their contact increases, the two gradually realize that what is really being discussed is not whether they love each other, but whether they accept their resettled life path: staying means stability and compromise; leaving means bearing the price of not being understood.
This book does not describe passion, nor does it offer redemption. It focuses on how independent adults try to reserve a small unarranged space for themselves amidst silence, restraint and realistic pressure when they are re-introduced into the orbit of their original family.
Purpose: True independence does not mean escaping from relationships, but remaining within relationships and still retaining the final decision-making power over one's own life.