Two People and Two Cities

Gu Yan, a restorer of ancient buildings, is forty-seven years old. His marriage is like a frozen river and has long been silent. He received a job to renovate an old Western-style building in the Republic of China on Machang Road, and thus met a woman who came to Tianjin from Harbin - publishing editor Su Man. An old house and an old letter sealed in the wall for decades brought them into the unending love affair between their grandmother Su Wan and a painter Shen Shu in the 1940s; they also dragged themselves into a relationship that they couldn't explain and couldn't let go. They went to Harbin to see the ice sculptures, but in the mountains blocked by heavy snow, they were forced to face each other's sincerity and their lifelong debts. Back in Tianjin, Su Man's husband Du Heng suddenly died in a strange car accident. Anonymous photos, mysterious letters, and questioning from the criminal police followed one after another - who was watching them in the dark? Was Du Heng's death an accident or a fate set up? The novel unfolds with a wedge and twenty-two chapters, interspersing Du Heng's thoughts before his death ("Du Heng's Eve"), the visit of his lover Qiao An in Shenzhen ("Qiao An's Visit"), and Shen Shu's forty years living in Hong Kong ("Shen Shu's Hong Kong") ), Zhou Jing's own lonely lamp ("Zhou Jing's Lamp"), and the perspectives of Xiaotang and Jiashu's two children ("The Snow of the Next Generation"), let the extramarital affair between Gu Yan and Su Man reflect the shortcomings and choices of each of the three generations. This is a novel about middle-aged marriage and extramarital affairs. It does not talk about moral judgment, but only talks about how a few ordinary people kept warm in the cold winter, how they owed money, and how they finally understood that living is more important than anything else.