Total Eclipse of the Heart

The title novella unfolds from the perspective of Song Xinglu, a handsome young doctor at a sanatorium. Several women he has known since childhood surround him, all harboring feelings for him and entangled with him in complicated ways. Among his patients is Dong Yansheng, a woman who has fallen silent after a broken heart and now drifts in a daze. Assigned as her attending physician, Song Xinglu finds himself, through daily consultations and one-sided confessions, gradually investing his emotions in this mute patient. The story traces the misaligned pursuits and belated affections among urban men and women, told in Yi Shu's signature style—brisk, cool, and gently tender beneath its sardonic edge.

The second novella, "Visitor from the South Star," carries a science-fiction tint: an alien visitor enters the heroine's thoughts and life by some means, originally to collect data samples on Earthlings, but is drawn to her temperament during their time together and develops a love that crosses planets. The story advances through light, humorous dialogue, blending urban romance with the premise of a visitor from outer space, and concludes in Yi Shu's customary "light at the end of the tunnel" fashion.

Both novellas are short, briskly paced, and dialogue-dense, crystallizing Yi Shu's clean, crisp narrative style in handling urban emotional themes, while also revealing her occasional relish for science fiction and fantasy.