Abstract: Zhao Shuli’s novel Liu Erhe and Wang Jisheng presents the complex reality of rural issues before the founding of the People’s Republic of China by focusing on three rural spaces: the childish games in the “Triangular Ping” alluding to the unequal relationships in the adult world; the “reasoning” in the Guandi Temple exposing the shortcomings of the village political system; and the “turning over” of the co-operative pointing to the unequal sharing of benefits resulting from the incomplete reforms. While Zhao Shuli was crafting his narrative across three distinct spaces, he subtly wove within it the quest for the autonomous and self-aware political potentiality of the peasantry, nurturing it as a transformative force. His literary vision of rural order diverged from the historical realities of the countryside during the transitional period, yet he refrained from adopting simplistic solutions and terminated the development of the story instead. So Liu Erhe and Wang Jisheng presents an “unfinished” state, which, far from becoming a shackle, gave rise to Zhao Shuli’s ideological grapple, prompting him to immerse himself in the practice of historical reality. At the same time, it also promoted a leap in the novelist’s creative thinking.

Key words: spatial writing, Zhao Shuli, Liu Erhe and Wang Jisheng, rural order imagination