Zeng Guangxian’s life was almost entirely spent making one mistake after another and living in constant regret. The word he used most often was “if.” Yet fate seemed to delight in playing tricks on him, filling his life with countless errors.
—Reader Ting Feng Ting Yu

Damn, I couldn’t put it down—I finished the whole thing in a single day! This is probably the most interesting novel I’ve read this year.
—Reader Six Sneezes

★ Copyrights sold: Vietnamese, English and German.

★ This book won the Novelist of the Year Award at the 4th Chinese-Language Literature & Media Awards in 2005 and the Best Book of the Year Award from The Beijing News in 2005. It has also been adapted into a television series.

★ A major new novel by Dongxi, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, explores the desires and struggles of ordinary people under the shackles of their era, portraying love and fate in an age of strict moral restraint, as well as the absurdity and helplessness of reality.

★ Each of us carries a “Book of Regret” in our hearts. This is the story of a “fool” who spends his entire life destroying the lives and happiness of those around him—and himself—revealing how he manages to ruin every moment of happiness in his life.

In an era of sexual repression, legitimate sex exists only within marriage.
Driven by indecision and fear, he missed his chance with a young woman who boldly confessed her feelings to him. Tormented by his unusually intense desires, he stumbled blindly into the room of a woman he admired—and though he did nothing, he was falsely accused of rape. During his ten years in prison, he paradoxically found steadfast love behind the bars. Yet after his release, sex and love still remain for him like a mirage.

With every step he takes, he regrets the one before. Regret has become his way of life—seemingly the result of a series of unfortunate coincidences, yet also an essential feature of life in this society.

Tian Dailin (pen name: Dongxi)

One of China’s most influential contemporary writers, currently serving as Chairman of the Guangxi Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Chairman of the Guangxi Writers Association, and Professor at Guangxi University for Nationalities.

His major works include the novels Echo, Loud Slaps in the Faces, Regret Record, and Fate Rewritten, as well as the novella The Life Without Words. Several of his works have been adapted into films and television series, and some have been translated into English, French, Swedish, Russian, Korean, Vietnamese, German, Czech, Danish, Japanese, Italian, and Greek, and published or released in these languages.

The novella The Life Without Words won the First Lu Xun Literary Prize for Novellas. The film Heavenly Lovers, adapted from this novella, received the “Best Artistic Contribution Award” at the 15th Tokyo International Film Festival. His novel Regret Record was awarded both the “2005 Novelist of the Year” prize at the 4th Chinese-Language Literature and Media Awards and the “2005 Best Book of the Year” award from The Beijing News. His novel Loud Slaps in the Faces was adapted into the film “My Sister’s Dictionary” and a 20-episode TV series. His novel Echo won both the Lu Xun Literary Prize and the Shi Nai’an Literary Prize in 2022, and the Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2023; it has also been adapted into a web series of the same name by the renowned director Feng Xiaogang.

Chapter One: Abstinence
Chapter Two: Friendship
Chapter Three: Impulse
Chapter Four: Fidelity
Chapter Five: The Body
Chapter Six: Wandering
Chapter Seven: If

Chapter 1: Sample Reading

If you don’t mind, I’ll get started.

Back then, I had curly hair, my voice was just deepening, and I didn’t have any facial hair yet. “A mouth without hair means you can’t be trusted,” my dad, Chang Feng, used to warn me. Life wasn’t like it is today—there were no televisions, no internet, and no tea houses. The streets were desolate; there were no coffee shops or dance halls, let alone saunas or massage parlors, and even small shops were rare. Besides going to school and attending struggle sessions, our main pastime was singing in mass choirs. There was no talk of sex in class, and even casual conversations rarely mentioned body parts. You’d never guess that the first lesson in my sexual education came from our two spotted dogs.

It was a Sunday, and the two dogs’ rear ends had unfortunately become stuck together. They stood in the sun in front of the warehouse, tongues lolling out, watching us warily. My dad pulled over a mat to block their path, while Yu Baijia and I grabbed another mat and moved in from behind to form a circle. The two dogs were trapped, one walking forward in a straight line, the other backing up, circling within the space defined by the mats, their mouths emitting soft grunts. Yu Baijia shouted excitedly, “Come and see! A ticket costs five cents!” Soon, people began streaming out of the warehouse—first Yu Baijia’s parents, Yu Fasheng and Fang Haitang, then Zhao Laoshi and his wife, Chen Baixiu. They gathered at the edge of the mats, opening their mouths in different shapes, revealing teeth that were white, yellow, or black. Some people laughed so hard that drool ran down their chins. The dogs grew more and more frightened as the crowd swelled, looking at us with pitiful eyes, their steps becoming frantic. The male dog circled along the edge of the mat, while the female dog couldn’t keep up with the backward motion, dragging her paws across the ground and leaving paw prints behind her. After several laps, the paw prints resembled the tracks on a running track.

You may not realize that in those special times, it was harder for people like us—those with “bad” social backgrounds—to find entertainment than it was to find money. So everyone broke into smiles, as if they wanted to spend every last bit of their savings, interest included, on this one day. To tell you the truth, my dad was laughing so hard that he was drooling, Uncle Yu wore a forced smile, Aunt Fang covered her mouth, and Grandpa Zhao bared two rows of black teeth, while Grandma Chen laughed until tears streamed down her face... Just as everyone was laughing together, Zhao Shanhe suddenly rolled out of the warehouse, her face stern. “Dad, Mom, you’re being taken advantage of! Have you even thought about whose mat you’re ruining?”

Grandpa Zhao and Grandma Chen immediately tried to wipe the smiles off their faces, but their expressions seemed to have lost their brakes—they just couldn’t stop smiling. This made Zhao Shanhe feel deeply embarrassed. Zhao Shanhe was the daughter of Zhao Laoshi. At the time, she worked at an ammunition factory in the suburbs, and she looked like a bouncy ball—round and plump, especially her chest, which was so full that she couldn’t find a suitable shirt in the department store. My dad thickened his skin and said, “Shanhe, everyone here is about to burst with laughter. Think of it as me setting up a stage for the neighbors to enjoy a show.”

“Why don’t you use your own mat to set up the stage?”

“Isn’t this dog my family’s? I’m providing the ‘actors’ for free, and I even have to give them extra food in the evening. I’m the one who’s losing out, not your mat.”

Zhao Shanhe stretched her neck and glanced at the dogs inside the mat, then let out a snort of laughter. She finally dropped her guard and joined in the laughter, her mouth opening wider than Grandpa Zhao’s, her whole body bending with laughter. Her brother, Zhao Wannian, happened to be riding his bicycle home at that moment. Seeing how unrestrained Zhao Shanhe was laughing, her face darkened like it had been painted black. With one hand on his hip and the other pointing at everyone’s foreheads, he declared, “This is unacceptable! This is lowbrow behavior—it deserves a public criticism session!”

Zhao Wannian was the principal of the Fifth Middle School, a well-known unmarried young man. It was no small feat for him to become a principal when he couldn’t even explain the famous line “mountains dance like silver snakes, plains race like wax elephants.” Clearly, he owed his position to his “working-class” background. His harsh tone sent a chill through the crowd, and hands that had been holding the mat one by one withdrew. In the end, the mat collapsed, leaving the two dogs completely exposed. Zhao Wannian spread out his palms and shouted, “Bring a stick!” I ran into the warehouse and grabbed a wooden stick. Zhao Wannian seized it and swung it hard at the point where the two dogs were stuck together. The dogs let out a mournful cry and limped toward the road. As they ran, something remarkable happened: the male dog’s forward steps and the female dog’s backward steps fell into perfect sync, as if someone were shouting “one, two, one, two” to guide them. They ran and dragged themselves across the road, crashing head-on into an oncoming bus. The bus’s bumper instantly caved in, and the sound of flesh hitting metal echoed for a long time. The wheels ran over their bodies, crushing their flesh and spilling out their blood and intestines, but their rear ends remained tightly stuck together, like two pieces of thin pancake glued to the road.

My eyes felt as if sand had gotten into them, and tears welled up uncontrollably. My dad wrapped the two dead dogs in a mat and threw it down in front of the warehouse. Zhao Wannian, together with Yu Baijia, used a stick to lift the two dogs and hoist them onto a tree branch in front of the door, with the stick positioned right at the point where the dogs were stuck together. The dogs hung upside down, their rear ends pointing skyward, hanging symmetrically—as if one dog were looking into a mirror. The crowd that had scattered moments earlier slowly began to gather again. Zhao Wannian pointed at the dogs: “Don’t think this is just a problem involving dogs. The real question is whether someone deliberately manipulated this situation. Publicly displaying pornography is even more serious than distributing pornographic books. You were all here—please come forward and report what you saw.”

My dad turned and walked away, creating a gap in the crowd that was promptly filled by my mom, who had just returned from work. As soon as she stepped in, Zhao Wannian’s eyelid twitched. My mom, named Wu Sheng, was a well-bred young lady who excelled in calligraphy, playing the piano, and embroidery—a reputation that preceded her, though not for her artistic talents, but for her beauty. After the liberation, she constantly redefined her worldview, dedicating herself to caring for animals at the zoo with her own hard work. Zhao Wannian fixed his gaze on my mom: “Anyone who witnessed this dog mating today must either write a thorough self-criticism or submit a denunciation report—and hand it in to me within three days.”

One by one, people began to leave. Grandpa Zhao spat out a mouthful of saliva and also turned away. In the end, only four students from the Fifth Middle School remained in front of Zhao Wannian: me, Yu Baijia, Xiao Chi, and Rong Guangming. Zhao Wannian watched the figures receding into the distance and said, “Even tigers need the help of their own brothers; in battle, teachers and students must stand together. Some people aren’t writing now, but they may not get another chance later. Students, if they won’t write, you must! Show me what you’re capable of—your words should be strong enough to be read aloud over the school’s loudspeakers.”