The novel is based on the story of young non-state employed teachers in poor village in China during the 1990s, who played an important role in children’s education in the rural areas where the supply of formal state-employed teachers was far from sufficient. Their sad struggle for equal treatment with their state-employed peers reveal the hard times these devote and selfless teachers went through, whose existence and contribution, however, have been little known to the public. With affectionate strokes and in a realistic style, the author draws a picture full of the details of a forgotten corner in China society.