Drifting in the Fading Years

In the autumn of 1962, a green train carried Lin Zhiyuan from the frozen fields of the Great Northern Wilderness to a small county town called Nanjiang. A Tsinghua graduate who had once worked in a central ministry, he was a man repeatedly dragged to the depths by his times-yet somehow, time and again, he found his footing in the cracks.

At the counter of the county credit office, he processed one ordinary loan after another: draft oxen, grain rations, production equipment. Caught between regulations and human sentiment, he held fast to his principles while witnessing all the warmth and coldness of small-town life. His wife Zhou Min and their two children were the only light behind this silent man.

Then the storm came. Colleagues chose sides; denunciations and struggle sessions followed. Swept along against his will, he was pushed into things he never wanted and bore the burden of guilt and betrayal. Those years taught him to swallow his words, his tears, and all his grievances.

In 1977, the road home finally opened. But the way back did not lead to the ideals of his youth. Missed time, words never spoken, loved ones drifting apart-all became wounds that would never fully heal.

This is a story about simply enduring-one ordinary man's rise and fall, restraint and persistence, loss and gain in the great river of an era. Faint light, lingering life; a life adrift in dark days. Yet somehow, he held on until dawn.