The novel opens with a flashback to a time when the narrator was a young bachelor, living in Hong Kong with his family. He is now thirty years old and has been living with a mask for the past 30 years. He tells his brother that he has had to hide his true identity from his family for so long because he does not want to be caught by them. He says that his mother always wants him to get married, but he knows that it is difficult to find a suitable partner for his mother. He also says that he knows of a young man named Fu yicheng who is the son of his mother's sister. The narrator says that the young man is idle and ungrateful, and that the relationship between the family and the man is strained.