Beyond the Dark House

In 1990, six-year-old Xiang Peng is sent back to his ancestral village in western Guangdong by his mother. The home that awaits him is not the one he remembers, but a sunless old house, two younger brothers who keep their distance, and a grandmother whose constant refrain echoes through every quarrel: "You're the eldest, you must yield." At first, Xiang Peng only wants his brothers to accept him. But in time, he comes to see that this seemingly simple rule has shaped the lives of his father and uncles, and is quietly steering his own generation toward the same fractures. Land disputes, gambling debts, uneven wages, open favoritism, and the burden of caring for aging parents pull the extended family further apart with each passing year. Xiang Peng himself spirals into gaming addiction, petty theft, and academic neglect—until he is sent to live with an aunt, where a single act of unspoken concern gives him a foothold to rebuild himself. From a left-behind child to a trade school student, from a ghostwriter of other people's stories to a novelist in his own right, Xiang Peng moves through different households and witnesses the full spectrum of human warmth and coldness. He comes to understand a bitter truth: some people draw close not because they have suddenly grown fond of you, but simply because they have come to need you. And some elders, however genuine their love, can wound the very children they cherish through the very ways they try to care. The old house remains dim, and the previous generation never finds full reconciliation. All Xiang Peng can do is ensure that the same old rules do not get handed down to the next.