This collection gathers short stories by Lu Xun, many of them among the first major works of fiction in modern vernacular Chinese. The title story takes the form of a diary kept by a man who comes to believe that those around him, and the long tradition they live by, are devouring people. Other stories look at the lives of poor villagers, struggling scholars and ordinary families in a China caught between old customs and new ideas. The tone moves between dark humour, pity and anger. Brief and precise, the stories ask how a society treats its weakest members and how habit and tradition can harden into cruelty. They remain a starting point for understanding modern Chinese writing.