The Map of Time

A Novel by Sun, Wei

“The Map of Time” tells of the different fates of 12 characters. It is the portrait of a generation in China. This novel is a best-seller in China 2017 and is in the process of being adapted into TV series by the currently top-rated Chinese TV platforms and listed companies Tencent Video (over 900 million mobile monthly active users) in China.

From 1989 to 1992, these characters were middle school classmates in Class Two. At that time, they were innocent children and had sincere friendships among each other. Two decades later, in the 2010s, they belong to totally different social classes, the powerful and the enslaved. Among these classmates, there is the high official of state-owned enterprise, the mistress of the rich, the small business owner who is going to be bankrupt soon, the monk, the police, the middle school teacher, the scientist who decided to return from USA working in his motherland and so on.

In 2012, these classmates of Class Two find each other via Chinese Facebook and build the chatting group of Class Two. A series of murders start ever since. Members of the chatting group are murdered one after another. The order of death coincides with the order of signatures on the graduation album of the year.

4 car bombings with different firework shows designed by the killer, 7 possible criminal suspects, 5 plausible truths, 15 days tracking, 48 hours of countdown revealing.. Everyone can be the murderer or the next victim, which makes it necessary to look into everyone’s life.

Among these classmates, Zhou is the son of a high official. He has become the vice president of a state-owned real estate company. Great power and wealth are in his control.

Dai marries him after graduation. But their relationship is destroyed. While Dai is pregnant, B-scan ultrasonography shows that she is going to have a son. While Dai is delivering the boy, she has a difficult labour and has to have an operation. The situation is very dangerous. The doctor lets Zhou choose who should live, his wife or his son. Zhou chooses his precious son instead of Dai, as if Dai is merely a breeding machine.

Ye is a mistress of Zhou. She is also a former classmate of Class Two. Ye wants to become Zhou’s wife. In addition, she is longing for a kid of her own. However, for the sake of Zhou’s hypocritical public reputation, she has to live in the shadows.

Liang was once as excellent as Zhou at the starting line in Class One. After graduation, he works harder than Zhou for many years. However, because he was born into a common family, all his efforts are in vain. He doesn’t not even have enough money to marry the girl he likes. His construction firm is on the edge of bankruptcy. He has to surrender to his fate. He cringes before Zhou, begging Zhou to place a few orders with his firm.

But Zhou does not even place a single order because Liang does not have enough money to bribe Zhou, like other businessmen do. Zhou sends him to Ye as a servant, ordering him to pay Ye’s bills whenever she wants to eat out. Zhou says, if Ye is satisfied with the service, Liang might still have the opportunity to save his construction firm.

In 2012, while other former classmates of Class Two find each other via Chinese Facebook, they plan to build a Home for the Aged for each other. So when they are old, they will be able to stay together and take care of each other, just like the good old days in Class Two. This is an ideal plan which is difficult to put into practice, yet most of the old classmates try to execute the plan. They find land to build the Home and hope Zhou is willing to donate a small amount of national funds to build the house.

However, Zhou wants to take advantage of the plan instead of to help. He plans to seize the land and build a five-star hotel instead of the House for aged Class Two. In this way, he will be able to make lots of money from the hotel for himself. Zhou forces several old classmates to join the scam and assist him to fool other old classmates, including Liang, Dai, Ye and other 8 classmates.

The 11 former classmates are facing the choice. Will they subject to Zhou to sacrifice the dream of other classmates and get benefit for themselves, or fight again the almighty power? Somehow the mysterious murders happen right after they make their choices.

The novel is about the political corruption in contemporary China. During recent years, corruption is a major problem in contemporary China, which causes unbridgeable gaps between the people who should have had equal opportunity to build their lives.

There is a theory- political power is the religion of China. During a long period, power is almighty, is hereditary, and is supposed to be abused. The people who have power are able to get treasure, to step on the dignity of others, to have more wives, to deprive anything they desire from others or to bully others merely for pleasure. Their decision can be above the law. Their children are going to become high officials as well in the future, who will also have absolute power. Yet the common people are doomed to be inferior race and to be bullied generation after generation.

To all the children in China, their fate has been written on the paper the day they are born. They do not have equal rights to complete with their peers and fight for better lives. Who they are going to become all depends on whether their parents have political power or not. It is a desperate fact to the children who are born in civilian families.

Corruption is not only a phenomenon which directly cause inequity and injustice, but also a virus which harm the souls of people. When people get used to the abuse of political power, all the inequity and injustice will be taken for granted. The powerful do whatever they like, having no sense of shame and feeling no guilty. The common people cringe before the officials, pleasing them and begging for mercy, which is just like adding fuel to the fire.

Gender inequality is another huge problem in China, which is also seriously pointed out in this novel.

In China, sons have the right to inherit family power, but daughters do not. So the people who hold prejudice regard sons are valuable and precious, but daughters are valueless. In the novel, there is a scene which is very frequently happened- people use type-B ultrasonic to check gender of babies before born. If the baby is a girl, she is probably going to be killed via artificial abortion, because most members in this family consider her valueless.

The social status of women is also not positive even in big cities like Shanghai in China. There is another scene. When the wife gives birth to her baby and unfortunately has a difficult labour, the doctor has to operate on her. Usually before this kind of operation, doctor will let the husband to choose which one to live under extreme circumstance, the baby or the mother. The husband chooses the live of baby in my novel, because the check shows the baby is a boy. A son is supposed to be much more precious than a wife. Wife is merely regarded as a breeding machine in a Chinese family. This is why more and more girls of new generations would rather stay single than get married.