Shi Pingmei

 ( 1902 Births ) 

She took an interest in politics and for that reason she moved to Beijing and enrolled at the Women's Teaching College. She actually majored in physical education because there was no course that year for literature.

After she left education she had a busy life. She wrote novel poetry and became a popular writer on ideas and Marxism. Her love life was tragic. She was tricked into swearing her undying love to a married man. When she met another man, Gao Junyu, she felt too damaged to accept his proposals and she demanded only friendship. He was from the same province of China and he was a founding member of China's communist party. Gao Junyu was also a devoted communist and he was married. They would meet and Gao Junyu divorced his wife. The only token of love she accepted was an ivory ring which matched one that he wore. He died when she was 23 and for the next three years she went to Taoran Pavilion where he was buried. She also had a now famous friendship with fellow writers Lu Yin and Lu Jingqing., Renditions.org, Retrieved 3 November 2016 Both of these friends had been very close to her during her life with an intimacy that is similar to heterosexual love. All three of them appear in Lu Yin's book and they act as narrators of Shi Pingmei's fictionalised story.