★Dubbed “Yunnan’s My Altay,” “a female To Live,” and “a woman’s Dust Settles,” Cangcheng ranks No. 3 in Douban’s (China’s Goodreads) 2025 list of Chinese Fiction, with an 8.6 rating. Endorsed by Dangdai, China’s leading literary journal—this debut novel marks a bold new voice in contemporary Chinese literature.
★A gripping feminist novel you won’t put down. It tells the intertwined lives of three women—their births and deaths, loves and sorrows—revealing fate’s absurdity, strangeness, and brutal truth.
★Set in a small county town in northwestern Yunnan, beneath majestic snow-capped mountains, the story unfolds from the mysterious death of a local “spirit medium.” Through vivid tales of love, vengeance, and resilience, readers glimpse the healing power of Yunnan’s wild landscapes and the raw vitality of everyday life in a frontier town. The women here grow untamed—and live fiercely.
★How do women survive? They learn from the sky. If the sky lets you live, you live. One day, they’ll wipe away every tear. There will be no more death, sorrow, weeping, or pain—because the old has passed away. Life never gave them choices, yet with innate strength, they carve their own paths. No waiting. No dependence. No false hope. Step by step, they walk toward greater freedom.

Set in Cangcheng—a small town nestled in the folds of the Hengduan Mountains in Yunnan, once a major grain-producing area in northwest Yunnan and a key hub on the Ancient Tea Horse Road—the story is infused with the Confucian culture from central China and the mysterious folk customs of the borderlands. The book exudes the unique atmosphere of the mountains in northwest Yunnan and the vibrant daily life of the small county.
A great event shakes Cangcheng: the shamaness has passed away. The news spreads quickly among the townsfolk, and the ghostly illusions of the narrator’s childhood come to an abrupt end. Starting with the ambiguous death of this shamaness, Cangcheng unfolds the lives of ordinary people in this small county in northwest Yunnan—including "the celibate maiden" who remains unmarried all her life, and "the female caravan leader" who runs a horse caravan alone to support her family… These women were not afforded choices by life, yet they fight for their survival with indomitable vitality.
Cangcheng collects the folk tales of this small town in southwest China and presents the life, death, love and pain of its women. With original narrative techniques and a sincere, passionate voice, the author tells us the absurdity, strangeness, harshness and reality of fate. In particular, when "Shuixian" is abducted to the wild mountains and becomes a bandit’s adopted daughter, her dying father tells her to stay alive. How to survive? —Learn from heaven. If heaven lets you live, you live. From a young girl to a shamaness, from the bandit-ridden wilderness back to her hometown, she blooms the flower of life amid despair. This innate, wild and unyielding vitality is exactly the spiritual remedy we need in modern times.

A Cuo

Born in Lijiang, Yunnan, A Cuo works a regular 9-to-5 job while pursuing her passion as a young writer.Cangcheng is her debut full-length novel. She loves mountains, rivers and the folk tales of northwest Yunnan. Her dream life is to spend half the year growing vegetables and the other half writing.

East Street of Cangcheng
Shuixian
The Celibate Maiden
The Female Caravan Leader
Epilogue