This volume contains his two novelettes Garden of Repose, completed in 1944, and Bitter Cold Nights in 1946.
Garden of Repose depicts the misfortunes which befell the Yang family. The work is a warning to parents that unless they have given their children a good moral education, the wealth they leave behind will not prove to be a blessing. On the contrary, it may well turn out to be the cause of disaster leading them to their downfall. Permanent values can be found only in noble ideals and in a healthy spiritual world.
Bitter Cold Nights is the story of the life and death of an ordinary intellectual, Wang Wenxuan, and his beautiful wife. At first a virtuous woman, Wang's wife eventually left him, as she could no longer bear the pain of poverty or resist the temptation of wealth and power. The book exposes the rule of darkness in the old days. In addition, it expresses the author's angry protest against the exploitation of the weak by the strong in a society where evil powers prevailed.
The volume also contains some illustrations.
