The novel opens with the narrator lamenting the end of school and the opening of a milk tea shop nearby. His younger brother, Zili, has a match the next day and the narrator is planning to buy groceries to prepare a feast for him. His uncle, who works as a fishmonger, gives him a fish to take home for his brother. The narrator laments that he and his younger brother have been forced to work as fishmongers because their parents have run out of money. He says that when he was young, his parents vanished as their debtors ran out of their debtors. He and his brother write novels and make a little money by selling them. When he was 13 years old, his uncle gave them a fish. He tells the narrator that his family was very happy until one day, when a fortune teller told him that he would be in danger. He resolves to become a successful comic artist.