Against the Current
Original novel Against the Current: on a cold, rainy night, Xu Jiayi, working late with a fever, hails a car that should not exist — and just as she steps into it, a delivery rider riding the wrong way crashes into her. Six acts of urban fantasy, in progress.
At a glance
- Written by
- Aki
- Protagonist
- Xu Jiayi, twenty-seven, an office administrator sharing a flat in the city
- Point of view
- Third person, close to Xu Jiayi
- Genre
- Urban fantasy
- Setting
- A present-day city
- Themes
- Holding on and letting go, The ties between people and Getting tomorrow back
- Length
- Six acts, about 50,000 Chinese characters
- Status
- Being serialised; each act goes up with its video release
- Languages
- Chinese original; English and Japanese translations follow each act
- Adaptations
- First trailer; the video version is released act by act
The seventh original story of The Song of Inanna, written by Aki. Aki usually edits our films and handles post-production; this is Aki’s first novel. It is an urban fantasy about holding on, letting go, and getting a tomorrow back.
Xu Jiayi is twenty-seven. She does office admin at a middling company in a big city and shares a flat in an old walk-up on the west side of town. The pay is low and the work is plentiful, and she has no particular complaints about any of it.
One cold, rainy night she works past ten with a fever and hails a car. Its number plate is caked with mud, the driver’s profile picture is a grey square, and the back seat is so dark that the light of her phone cannot get into it. Just as she lifts a foot to climb in, a delivery rider riding the wrong way comes tearing towards her on an electric scooter and knocks her into the floodwater.
The black car drives away, leaving a burning pain on her wrist. The rider says the accident was entirely her own fault, turns up at Jiayi’s flat the next morning, and announces that she will come every day until Jiayi can walk on her own.
The title comes from a line at the very start of the book: to refuse to let go is to row a boat against the current.
Six acts, about 50,000 Chinese characters, told in the third person.
Watch
Trailer (2:30)
More on the YouTube channel.
Read
The novel goes online act by act, in step with the film releases. Each act goes up in Chinese, English and Japanese together when its film is released, starting with Act One. The Chinese original is the definitive text.