Yu Xiaoyu and Gu Kui met on a university campus in the late 1980s. Yu Xiaoyu, who grew up in a big city, was an eccentric and bookish person, while Gu Kui, a farmer's boy who grew up in a poor mountainous area, was talented, strong and warm, and had hugely different upbringings. The two people had a vague affection but did not clarify it, leaving only regrets.
After graduation in the early 1990s, we lost contact, went round and round, and reconnected 15 years later. As middle-aged people, we were helpless and struggled with the crushing pressure of life and the trivialities of our families. The novel uses the reunion after a long separation as a timeline to depict how middle-aged people now choose between rationality and sensibility in the face of the pressure of life, lost emotions, and trivialities of family.
Intention: Family, love, friendship, but there is a fourth kind of emotion that exists in the world. Although it is beautiful, it is helpless and must ultimately surrender to responsibility.