Time in Mint

"Time in the Mint" tells the story of Chen Yan, who was stuck in a creative bottleneck. When he was confused in life, he came to Wutong Lane to visit Mr. Zhou Jingzhi. Chen Yan, who is forty-five years old, carries a messy first draft of the novel. He thinks that he has wasted half of his life. He has been writing a small town novel for three months but has not even straightened out the beginning. He is deeply dissatisfied with the manuscripts he has dealt with in the past.​ In Mr. Zhou's life-filled home, accompanied by the fragrance of mint and chrysanthemum tea, Zhou Jingzhi enlightened Chen Yan through the examples of Darwin and Oppenheimer, as well as his own experience of spending ten years at the age of seventy to complete research on local endangered butterflies and publish the "Wutong Town Butterfly Atlas".​ Chen Yan was deeply touched, clarified the meaning of goals and persistence, and regained his creative confidence. Half a year later, he came back to visit with the completed first draft of "Wutong Lane Chronicles" and learned that Lin Zhe, who had been equally confused, had also found his direction in life. The novel uses the scent of mint to convey the profound truth that "the difference between greatness and mediocrity lies in the courage to persist for the goal. Ordinary days will eventually lead to dreams because of the guidance of goals."