The House of Great Wealth

Name: The House of Great Wealth
ISBN: 9787559481245

易术Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House · ChinaMar 2026

3.2

Word count: 98K words
Chapters: 10
ISBN: 9787559481245

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Summary

The story is set in present-day Changde County, Hunan. Zhang Dahai, sixty, has raised three children alone since his wife died years ago. A straight-backed, stubborn man, he cooks at a small restaurant and lives a disciplined, two-point routine, taking the No. 48 bus to work and quietly nursing a crush on its woman driver, Jinzhi.

His son Zhang Xiao'an is a handsome lad who inherited his father's gift for cooking. While working as a delivery rider, he falls for Xiao Zhuan, a lively food-exploration vlogger, but, being deaf-mute, the introverted Xiao'an cannot bring himself to confess.

Father and son each have their troubles, and the rest of the family faces its own hardships. Then a lottery win of 200,000 yuan drops from the sky…

Editor's review

Yi Shu's The House of Great Fortune turns its lens on an ordinary family in Changde County, Hunan, tracing the parallel emotional lives of Zhang Dahai, a sixty-year-old cook, and his deaf-mute son Zhang Xiao'an to capture both the dignity and the strain of small-town life. The novel's greatest strength is that it never dramatizes hardship: the father riding the No. 48 bus to work and secretly pining for its woman driver, the son delivering takeout and falling for a food vlogger yet hesitating over his own identity—details like these make stubbornness and tenderness feel equally real. The 200,000-yuan lottery win is a stone dropped into still water, testing father and son's separate understandings of dignity, intimacy, and family duty. The prose is plain and restrained, and the county-town setting and street-level bustle form a dependable backdrop. Suited to reading in stretches on the commute or before bed, and to readers who care about small-town family ethics and the emotional lives of disabled young people.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Literary readers who enjoy small-town family stories and care about father-son relationships and everyday ethics
Readers interested in the emotional and coming-of-age issues of hearing-impaired young people and looking for plain, grounded storytelling
Readers from Hunan or with a Changde background who want to recognize the texture of familiar local life in fiction
Writing enthusiasts who want to observe how an author uses everyday detail to shift character relationships

Not a good fit for

Genre-fiction readers who prefer strong plots, fast pacing, or suspense and fantasy settings
Readers expecting a wish-fulfillment twist in which the lottery changes everything, or a highly dramatic ending
Readers impatient with slow-burn slice-of-life narration who want conflict to advance in every chapter

Reading tips

Start by noticing the things Zhang Dahai and Zhang Xiao'an each cannot bring themselves to say; read the father's and son's threads against each other to feel the similarities and differences in their generational silence.
Once the lottery ticket appears, slow down and watch how each character's attitude toward the money shifts, rather than rushing to learn the outcome.
Read the No. 48 bus, the small restaurant, and the delivery routes as a map of the county town, and note how space shapes the characters' relationships.
After finishing, look back at how father and son each hesitate before Jinzhi and Xiao Zhuan, and think about what "confessing" means in this novel.

About the publisher

Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House China · Founded in 1958

Jiangsu Phoenix Literature and Art Publishing House focuses on literary publishing while also covering the humanities, social sciences, and books on art and daily life. Its approximately 1,535 titles in the database span social novels, world history, design, science fiction, classic works, and film and television: they include modern Chinese literary classics by Lu Xun such as A Madman's Diary: The Complete Short Stories of Lu Xun, Call to Arms, Four Generations Under One Roof, and Teahouse, as well as foreign literary memoirs like Stefan Zweig's The World of Yesterday. In science fiction it offers Asimov's Galactic Empire series, while in architecture and art it publishes Liu Dunzhen's Classical Gardens of Suzhou and design titles from Phoenix Space. Its authors are concentrated among classic writers such as Lu Xun, Zweig, and Asimov, with translators including Liang Xijiang, Zhong Haonan, and Ye Lihua. Its overall character is built on classic works while embracing genre fiction and visual culture. Public information is limited, and this introduction is based on the titles in the database.

版权信息
第一章绝症
第二章秘密
第三章恋爱
第四章偏执
第五章败类
第六章争吵
第七章意外
第八章日出
终章一年后

FAQ

Is this book suitable for adaptation into a film or TV series?

From the available material, the novel's scenes are concentrated in a small restaurant, a bus, and county-town streets; the character relationships are clear, and the father-son dual emotional thread has an everyday texture that provides a basis for family-drama adaptation. Whether it is actually suitable depends on the narrative density and conflict design of the complete text, which a synopsis alone cannot determine.

Zhang Xiao'an is deaf-mute. Is this thread written authentically?

The material only states that he is introverted and afraid to confess because of his deaf-mute identity. Whether the novel deeply presents deaf people's ways of communicating and the details of their lives requires reading the full text to assess. Readers are advised to pay attention to how the author handles his inner monologue and his interactions with the outside world, rather than treating him merely as a symbol of romantic obstacle.

Is the lottery win the core turning point of the story?

The synopsis shows the 200,000-yuan lottery win appearing after father and son each face their troubles, so it reads more as an occasion that drives changes in family relationships. It may test the characters' choices about money, dignity, and intimacy rather than being a simple reversal of fate. Its exact role needs to be confirmed by reading the main text.

Can readers without experience of county-town life get into it?

Yes. The novel's main thread is father-son emotion and everyday choices; the county-town setting supplies everyday texture rather than a barrier to reading. Scenes such as the bus, the small restaurant, and food delivery are familiar to most readers and actually make it easy to enter.

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About the author

易术 Author

Yi Shu is a writer about whom relatively limited public information is currently available. His works mainly fall into three categories: social fiction, inspirational growth, and essays and miscellaneous writings. The library holds three of his works: Lend Me the Spring Breeze Like Youth, If You Have No Dreams, Why Go Far Away, and The House of Great Wealth. Judging from these titles and categories, Yi Shu's writing tends to revolve around youthful memories, the pursuit of ideals, and real-life circumstances. It includes narrative expressions oriented toward social life as well as essay-style writing centered on personal reflection. Titles such as If You Have No Dreams, Why Go Far Away carry an obvious inspirational tone and are likely to resonate with young readers, while The House of Great Wealth leans more toward social fiction, offering a perspective on worldly affairs and family life. Overall, Yi Shu's work lies between fiction and essays, with themes close to ordinary people's experiences of growing up and everyday feelings. Because his nationality, dates of birth and death, educational background, and writing career are not clearly documented, this introduction focuses only on the general features of his works; fuller author information awaits further public sources.