★ This book includs two novellas by Xue Yanping, both of which are full of a strong and unique Beijing flavor.
★ Once: the embarrassing circumstances of life seem to be more conducive to nurturing emotional flowers, after all, everyone has been good, and ordinary life is always full of trivial things.
★ Blue: It tells the past of Beijing in the 1950s. In the peaceful life in the hutong, each family has its own story.

The hero of the novel Once, Li Tieliang, is a man from the lowest class in Beijing who takes care of his daughter in addition to working as a supervisor every day. When he met Wang Wenli, an old classmate from junior high school and his original dream lover, Tieliang tried his best to help Wang Wenli, who had an equally difficult life, and when the two finally held hands and left, they were accidentally discovered by their respective daughters and Tieliang's wife Xiuzhen... The story ends abruptly here, which is ridiculous.

The novel Blue uses a child's perspective to connect the stories of people who happen to them and around them. Listening to the children talk about various daily small things in the peaceful life of the alley, the atmosphere of life is full.

Xue Yanping, who was nominated for the fourth Lao She Literature Award, has written several works such as Coloured Glaze, Cocoon Making, 21g of Love, and Gentle Lies and so on.