China's so-called unprecedented Cultural Revolution was indeed a rare event in history. The darkest part of it was categorizing people with labels. Such labels had the most impactful colors and clear meaning as love and hate, the only two emotions associated with people during the Cultural Revolution.

Although these labels had many names such as hired farmers, poor farmers, lower-middle farmers, middle farmers, upper-middle farmers, rich peasants, landlords, capitalists, city poor, rightists, counter-revolutionaries, reactionary academic authorities ... but there were only two colors: red and black.

Red was the pride of the communist party flag flying in the sky. Black was the darkest long night without stars and moons.

The book is about the fate of two girls Er Juan and Pei Min, who were best friends being labeled black, and their survival in the Ocean of Red.

The backdrop of the story began with the Anti-Rightist Movement in 1957 when China entered into an era that the people's voices were stifled. It was the prelude phase of the Cultural Revolution. The story ended at the beginning of the 1990s, with the fall of the Gang of Four when the country began to revive from the chaos via economic reform. It seemed that the Cultural Revolution was ended, but somehow it was never over.