This is a classic novel constructed by literature on the mundane world of the countryside. In the eyes of the world, Shangtang is just a little-known and insignificant village on a vast map; in the author's writing, it is an existence worth treating as a life, and a microcosm of contemporary Chinese rural areas. From a bird’s-eye panoramic perspective, the work describes its geography, politics, transportation, communications, education, trade, culture, marriage, and history in turn. It is mixed with natural depictions of rural landscapes such as houses, streets, old wells, and roads. The vivid silhouettes of the characters, they live and die in love and hatred, and indifferent life and death, all their weaknesses and virtues are swayed freely on them, forming the spiritual territory of Shangtang.