The devil's statement here, "I am just an underground ghost! It means what you modestly call yourselves country folks," alludes to Shen Congwen. Those who love literature know that Shen Congwen always considered himself a "country folk." As he wrote in his essay "Exercises": I am truly a country person. To say I am a country person carries no pride, nor self-deprecation. Country people are typically rooted deeply, forever remaining rustic in temperament, with unique patterns of love and hate, joy and sorrow, entirely different from city dwellers. They are conservative, stubborn, loving the land, not lacking in alertness, yet devoid of guile. They take everything very seriously, sometimes overly so, to the point of appearing foolish at times... Again, when Shen Congwen was pursuing Zhang Zhaohe early in his life, he also referred to himself as a "country person." He once wrote to Zhang Zhaohe's second sister, Yunhe, asking her to inquire about their father’s attitude towards their marriage. In the letter, he wrote: If Father agrees, let me know sooner, and let this country person taste some sweetness. Zhang Zhaohe's father, open-minded, responded: The children's marriages, they manage themselves. After the father approved, the two sisters went together to the post office to send a telegram to Shen Congwen. Zhang Yunhe drafted the telegram: Shandong Qingdao University, Shen Congwen, allowed. Zhang Zhaohe's version read: Shen Congwen, country person, drink some sweetness. In the end, the post office sent the telegram according to Yunhe's draft to Shen Congwen.
Shen Congwen, the "country person," indeed had a legendary life, marked by three transformations most unexpected. The first transformation was becoming a celebrated writer with numerous works despite only having a primary school education; the second transformation was his sudden disappearance from the literary scene due to various reasons, shifting instead to achieve remarkable success in the study of material cultural history; the third transformation occurred in his later years when he was finally discovered like an "archaeological find," leading to the mass publication of his early works and suddenly becoming a focal point in academic research. Such a legendary experience for Shen Congwen is probably unparalleled among modern Chinese writers, undoubtedly a miracle.