Back to the Northeast

Starting a new book, please add it to your reading list!

[Blurb]

Female lead: Not a graduate of a top-tier university. A miserable 996/007 office worker. No degree, no looks, lazy and greedy, with no ambition. She's run three companies into the ground, been laid off twice, and never once quit voluntarily. Other people return to their hometowns to start businesses; she goes back to her fishing village to lie flat. She just wants to be a salted fish. She streams from time to time, and people often yell, "Get off the stream!" Damn it, for everyone else, that's just something you say to a streamer. To her, it's a personal insult, because her name is Xia Bo.

Male lead: Luo Yu, a young man who returned to his hometown to start a business. He's the upperclassman she had a crush on since middle school, and he has a girlfriend.

Male lead: Jin Shuisheng, the rich second-generation heir to Jinshui Group. A childish, clingy sweet-talker, and single.

Xia Bo's words:

"He's got a girlfriend. We can't do something that rotten. No way."

"He's single? Well, if nobody else wants him, why should I? Not interested."

Serves you right for being a single dog!

She's all bluster: If he's really that great, why would he ever pick me?

A clear-headed yet hopelessly chuunibyou older single woman from a fishing village tries to "land a husband."

-

-

Back to the Northeast is a memoir-like story that covers my life from childhood to the present.

It's strange. You think you've forgotten the faces of the people around you as a child, people who didn't seem important at the time.

But while writing, it was like transmigrating through time back to my childhood. The man next door, shuffling around in cotton slippers with a cigarette in his mouth, fishing a crushed cigarette pack from his pocket whenever he met someone, came back to me so clearly that I could recall every crease.

Back to the Northeast portrays ordinary people, as ordinary as they come. Some of the real-life inspirations for them have already passed away, and I thought that if I didn't record their stories, no one would remember them.

They were like gusts of wind sweeping over the black earth of the Northeast. Some brought forth a blade of grass, some bloomed into flowers, some grew into great trees, while others crumbled into the soil without leaving a trace.

Now that I've reached this age, my old self-importance has faded and both feet are back on the ground. I've realized that I'm no different from them.

While writing, I often found myself unable to hold back my tears. The pain and helplessness of the adult world that I couldn't understand as a child now resonate with me completely.

I thought I would like the version of myself I wrote, but it turns out I don't. The character I like most is the old bachelor Erlaizi, the one I looked down on most as a child.

He was at the very bottom of the whole town's pecking order, but no matter how awful his life got, he could still laugh in the mud, until love betrayed him...

How many people can live with such unguarded sincerity?

[First half] The human world, centered on the villagers of Teams Four and Five in Heijin Town.

Jin Qiu's father, Jin Guangyao, rode the tide of reform and opening-up, going from farmer to shoe factory owner;

Jin Qiu's neighbor, Geng Changfu, became the village's first household with ten thousand yuan, then sank into debt and poverty;

Geng Changfu's wife, Xiuya, was neglected by her husband and went from respectable housewife to woman who ran away with a young electrician;

Geng Changfu's daughter, Baoxiang, grew up without a mother's love, dropped out of school young, became pregnant before marriage, was abandoned, and attempted suicide;

The spirit mediums and fortune-tellers...

The old bachelor Erlaizi...

The Jin family, the Bai family...

Everyone's life is a drama, and they act it out passionately on this black earth. If you happen to see something you might call "life" in one of them, that will be the greatest comfort to me.

[Second half] Focuses on the two female leads, Jin Qiu and Liu Yuanyuan, who also appear in the first half.

Liu Yuanyuan transferred here from another place at the end of last semester.

Like Jin Qiu, she wore her hair in a bob. Jin Qiu's first impression of her could be summed up in one word: mature.

The first time they spoke was during a fight.

Some people said they were twins, conjoined babies. Liu Yuanyuan said they were clay figures molded by Nuwa and brought to life with a single breath, their souls split in two.

Theme: Why are there always tears in my eyes? Because I love this black earth so deeply.