"I often feel like the walls in the room are closing in on me. When I'm outside, the road sometimes looks distorted. That feeling of impending doom frequently torments me," she writes in an article.

Fear of death — paired with a fierce desire to live — forced her to confront her life more honestly. She relinquished the forms of security society values most: a stable job, marriage and a home. She returned to the mountain village where nature is still revered, choosing not to hide her struggles from her parents anymore. She focused first on sleep, food and grounding herself in the land that once nurtured her.

But she never stopped writing. In 2022, Zha posted an article on social media platform Douban in which a college teacher demonstrated how to take a bath, which went viral online.

An editor Zhao Yang reached out and encouraged her to turn her life stories into a book. Zhao says: "Writing about life's hardships isn't about focusing on suffering or indulging in sensationalism and kitsch. Instead, it's about the gentle strength and resilience of life, about understanding and acceptance — accepting life's bitterness, our own ordinariness, and the inherent frailty of humanity. It's about embracing these with gentle understanding and living with care. This is the core that makes the author and her writing consistently moving."