Silent River
If people give up the past, they lose themselves; if they give up the future, they go out of time.
The novel tells the story of a child (Jia Xinliu) who was abducted several times and picked up by a villager (Jia Yiren) suffering from polio, thus witnessing the rise and fall of a village.
The protagonist escaped the human traffickers at the train station, wandered around for several months, was picked up by Jia Yiren and given the name Jia Xinliu. During the five years of living in Jiajia Village, Xinliu witnessed the village flourishing due to the newly built chemical factory and then declining due to the lack of water pollution. Under the packaging of lies, it became absurd and eventually died inevitably. Meanwhile, thoughts about the living conditions of vulnerable groups such as kidnapped children (Jia Xinliu), trafficked women (crazy women), disabled people (Jia Yiren), Alzheimer's patients (Jia Youfu), students who want to change their fate by reading (Jia Xinyuan), and migrant workers (Jia Guangtou) are interspersed.
In addition, the story explores themes of language, reality, time, death, suffering, love and nature, attempting to show the interdependence of vulnerable groups in extreme environments and the brilliance of human nature in suffering.
