The novel uses the metaphors of "rag dolls" and "mud dolls" to start from Tianjin Port in 1948, to Taipei in 1978, London and Edinburgh in 1995 to contemporary Beijing. It is based on the changes of the times, the workplace of state-owned enterprises, scientific research reefs, the sorrow of entrepreneurship, and family ethics. Through a multi-line intertwined narrative, the crushing of personal destiny by war, class, and the times is integrated into the ups and downs of the family over a century, and the characters' inner thoughts are revealed. The texture tells the story of the love-hate separation of three generations of three families in the impact of the times, the entanglement of family blood and the loss of individual identity. It explores how individuals move from chaos to awakening amidst the squeeze of the times and ethics, how individuals stick to their true hearts or struggle for alienation in the secular torrent, how to find the fulcrum of life in the torn apart of family, friendship, love, responsibility and freedom, and to find the redemption of friendship and the rebirth of the self in the brokenness.
Concept: The novel uses "mud" as a metaphor for the insignificance and stickiness of individuals in the times, and "cloth" as a metaphor for life that is cut by the will of others. Everyone is like "rag dolls" and "clay dolls", broken and reshaped in the twists and turns of fate. The story of three generations interrogates the relationship between fate and freedom - when national will, family responsibility, and ethical taboos are intertwined like warp and weft, can individuals find a glimmer of light in the web of fate?