In this short scene, we meet our hero, who is a student at a high school in Shanghai, China. We learn that he is named after the eighth day of March, the day of his birth. We also learn that his name is "hao sanba" , which means "happy labor day" in Chinese. We are introduced to our hero's best friend, "haowuyi," who is also a student in the same school. He tells us that his first day of school is "his first birthday," which is a very important day in high school because it is the beginning of the school year. He explains that the novel he is reading is "boring," and that readers are "sick of it" . The protagonist is a domineering plant manager who falls in love with a woman, and the main character is a woman who runs away from the plant manager and chases after him. This is the same story that the protagonist's mother used to read to him when he was a child. He says that his mother called him a "spendthrift" because he spent his money on shoes that were not branded.