No Need to Hold Back the Sky

When he was eighteen years old, Yu Yunsheng and Song Xue often chatted on the rooftop. Under their feet is Mingli Academy, an institution that regards "rules" as its norm and a miniature theater of the entire era. Yu Yunsheng has a crush on Qin Xiangyi, a girl with average grades and average appearance. Qin Xiangyi chose Zhang Qian, the vice chairman of the student union - the man who always upholds the rules. Until one day she discovered that when the rules required the sacrifice of innocent people, Zhang Qian did not hesitate. Yi Zhihu transferred from school and was born to challenge authority; Chen Siyuan timidly joined the humanities club and later took over as president; Yi Zhixin broke into Chen Siyuan's life lively; Song Xuezeng vigorously pursued Chu Yao, pushing himself to the edge and getting up again and again. They held poetry recitals, rehearsed plays, and investigated canteen problems. The play called "Tianhe" was finally staged, but the story had just begun. In the next fifteen years, this group of teenagers went to all corners of the world: some got into trouble working in the media, some fought lawsuits on behalf of migrant workers, some started up again after failing to start a business, and some entered the system but asked themselves confused questions when they dreamed back at midnight. Qin Xiangyi slowly came to Yu Yunsheng's side from an ordinary girl who just wanted to "keep her own life" and became his earliest reader and most steadfast traveler. None of them held Tianhe's hand. But they are all using their own ways to make the land beneath their feet a little better. This is the growth history of a generation. There is looking up, there is falling, there is love, there is separation, and there is reconstruction after being crushed by reality. There are no heroes, just a group of people who were once eighteen. I would like to dedicate this book to every young man who has ever looked up on the rooftop.