"The basic tone of the novel is oppressive, with vivid descriptions of the patients' mentality facing the threat of death," Bi claimed. For that reason, the novel has been dubbed the first "psychotherapy novel" in China. 

 

Bi calmly interprets the theme of "life" and "death" and the great humanistic care in a calm and unhurried tone, and spans the single sociological perspective and rises to the level to question closely the value of life and to think about the meaning of life by her evermore mature works. She expresses her literary gist to reveal, criticize and redevelop the shortcomings of human nature. She explores the functional relationships between doctors and patients, and that of disease and therapy, which are the most basic ones in the complicated medical system. She clothes medical science with a literary coat and moulds characters' natures with the "coldness" of medical science and the "heat" of literature. She makes the gloomy medical topics and abstruse and obscure medical terms relaxing, humorous and easy to understand.