I sometimes think that there is a link between the decline in humanity and the increase in prosperity and comfort. Property and comfort are what peop… - Mo Yan

Ding Gou’er was born in 1941 and married in 1965. It was garden variety marriage, with husband and wife getting along well enough, and producing one child, a darling little boy. He had a mistress who was sometimes adorable and sometimes downright spooky. Sometimes she was like the sun, at other times he moon. Sometimes she was a seductive feline, at other times a mad dog. The idea of divorcing his wife appealed to him, but not enough to actually go through with it. Staying with his mistress was tempting, but not enough to actually do it. Anytime he took sick, he fantasized the onset of cancer, yet was terrified by the thought of the disease; he loved life dearly, and was tired to death of it. He had trouble being decisive. He often stuck the muzzle of his pistol against his temple, then brought it back down; another frequent site of this game was his chest, specifically the area over his heart. One thing and one thing only pleased him without exception or diminution: investigating and solving criminal cases.

Liquor infatuates me until I am in capable of following rules and regulations. Liquor's character is wild and unrestrained; its temperament is to talk without thinking.

The fundamental principle of literature is to create something out of nothing and to make up stories. My creation has not been altogether fashioned out of nothing, and is not entirely made up.