At the end of the water

Author: Zhang Zhihao
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-10-01
Features: A suspenseful story about male and female emotions, the love truth among the people, and exploring the roots of contemporary extramarital affairs. It is a suspenseful novel about emotional issues. The protagonist Zhang Wang receives five anonymous letters with the same content at the same time on his office desk. A woman who claims to be one of his "women he once had" tells him that she and her son are healthy, though she misses him occasionally. This brings immense panic to Zhang Wang, who has a successful career and a stable family. When the sixth letter arrives, he decides to follow his emotional memory to find this mysterious woman. Who is she? He can't help but feel deeply confused and reflective. He doesn't know which woman he truly loves, nor which woman truly loves him. Where exactly is the boundary between love and hate? How can loyalty and betrayal be distinguished? What weight does family hold in male and female emotions? For a middle-aged man, "When you reach the end of the water, you must return to simplicity; when you sit and watch the clouds rise, you are already free of desires." "A woman who once had you, endured immense pain and criticism, and gave birth to your son without your knowledge." Zhang Wang is a successful advertising company boss with a comfortable married life. However, from one day, he starts receiving the same anonymous letter every week, without a signature and from different cities. When he receives the seventh letter, he nearly collapses, spiraling into panic and madness. This is the beginning of the story of the urban emotional suspense novel "Where the Water Ends." The male protagonist Zhang Wang finally decides to find the mysterious sender of the letters. He takes the seven mysterious letters and begins to search for the three ex-girlfriends who once caused him pain due to love, determined to find out whether he has a bastard child. Meanwhile, his wife Yang Fen, due to a surgical error, can no longer bear children, and their marriage life begins to face crises.
The behavior of the first woman, Zhu Juan, is utterly bizarre and extreme, leaving one chilled to the bone. Because Zhang Wang once broke up with her, she cut off one of her fingers; when they reunite years later, she buries Zhang Wang's appendix and her severed finger in a flower pot at home, and she also prevents Zhang Wang from meeting her son. There is even a mysterious room in the house that she refuses to let Zhang Wang enter. During Zhang Wang's journey to find his child, he encounters another mysterious and strange incident: in a desolate mountain village inn, he meets a woman with four children by different fathers. In his subconscious, he has a relationship with the woman named Shanquan, but she denies it, and everything seems hazy and eerie.
The behavior of the second woman, Mali Li, is equally absurd and inexplicable. She marries someone else and has a son. The entire journey: Longquan Hotel Room 8318, Supply and Marketing Reception Center, Mingming Dumpling House—and all of this is the name of their son from years ago, who is named Zhang Wang! After finding her, Mali Li refuses to meet Zhang Wang but controls him using their son, forcing him to repeat the route they once loved. Mali Li is merely making the male protagonist relive his love with her. These bizarre actions fill the protagonist with fear, and he prepares to expose her game. At this moment, Mali Li's son, Zhang Wang, is kidnapped.
Zhang Wang continues his search, looking for the third woman who once had a deep and unforgettable love with him—Qin Hong. A simple and innocent rural girl, she comes to Wuhan with dreams of modern city life but gets lost in the harsh reality. She then falls in love with a married man—Zhang Wang—and lives with him for a time, but ultimately chooses to leave him. At this time, Qin Hong is the owner of a discotheque. She has never been married but has a son whose father is unknown, and the circumstances are indeed intriguing. Zhang Wang pins his greatest suspicion on her. Who is the mysterious woman who wrote the letters? Does the male protagonist really have a bastard child? In an era of widespread love, where is true love? In the noisy and materialistic modern metropolis, where are the increasingly complex emotions and marriages of urban men and women headed? This novel profoundly depicts the confusion of contemporary urban emotions.