The Ring of Ashes

Lin Yi, 24 years old, with a junior college education, delivers takeout in an unfamiliar city. His rented room costs four hundred yuan a month, with a mahjong parlor next door and a barbecue stall downstairs. He's gone through seven or eight jobs, never staying long at any of them. It isn't that he can't handle hardship; he just always feels he was meant for something else. One night, he spent five yuan at a used-book stall on a battered book titled The Ring of Ashes. The last page was blank, save for a single line written by hand: “If you can read this, it means I couldn't write any further. It's your turn.”