The Lamp of Last Night

Pei Xueke is a student at Fu Jen Catholic University, happily in love with Tang Wanli, a boy who can both sing and write, and her days are peaceful. At her father Xu Yuanhang's wedding, she meets Ye Gang, the ex-boyfriend of the bride Lin Yuyan—a mature, mysterious, charming middle-aged man. Both are unsettled by the wedding, so they leave early and spend that uncomfortable afternoon in cafés and record shops. More than half a year later, Xueke meets Ye Gang again at her father's birthday banquet; the two slip out together and drive up to the top of Yangmingshan, looking down at the myriad lights of the city below and talking of how behind each lamp there may lie a family and a story. After that night, Xueke breaks up with Tang Wanli and throws herself into Ye Gang's world. Yet Ye Gang speaks only of romance, never of marriage. Whenever Xueke mentions marriage, he turns caustic and violent, grinding her into the dust with the most hurtful words, then repenting afterward and winning her back, again and again. Xueke will not let go; she searches out Lin Yuyan and finally meets Ye Gang's former lover Du Yiping, learning of the wound in him that has never healed: his mother's side of the family carries a congenital defect, his younger brothers were born deformed, and before marriage he himself dared not have children; Du Yiping became pregnant by accident and insisted on giving birth, but the child was born with Down syndrome, and that episode ruined both their lives. Knowing the truth, Xueke says she does not mind and is willing to forgo children. Yet this very understanding tears open the dignity Ye Gang has struggled to maintain. He rushes into the street and ends his life in the traffic. Xueke collapses, speaking, crying, and smiling no more for long days; the one who stays by her side and never leaves is Tang Wanli. Using the "lamp" as its thread, the novel writes of wanting to love, being unable to love, and being able only to wait for love, and of how a family's wounds are passed down from generation to generation.