The narrator wakes sick with hepatitis E in the village while his father is away working in the city.

The narrator's family boards a bus and moves from the village to the city for the first time.

The narrator takes a job delivering pirated DVDs and has his first encounters with the pretty girl at the salon next door.

The narrator and the pretty girl have sex on the rooftop of her building before she abruptly disappears from the neighborhood.

The narrator enrolls in university at his father's insistence and joins a fundamentalist organization, growing a beard.

The narrator's mother dies after the organization's clinic fails to provide her any real medical treatment.

The narrator visits a barber's stall and has his beard shaved off, effectively departing the university organization.

The narrator works as a traveling salesman for a master who buys expired food, repackages it with new dates, and resells it.

The narrator poses as a waiter at a fashion show afterparty and unexpectedly comes face to face with the pretty girl.

The narrator launches a water bottling business by leveraging the vendor contacts he built during his expired food routes.

The narrator marries the young sister of his accountant, agreeing to let her finish her law degree before having children.

A gunman on a motorcycle forces the narrator out of his car and presses a pistol to his head as a warning from a rival bottling magnate.

The narrator's company collapses after his former brother-in-law absconds abroad with all the funds raised for the planned acquisition.

The narrator and the pretty girl spot each other outside a pharmacy, recognize one another, and begin spending time together again.

The pretty girl dies of cancer weeks after her diagnosis, and the dying narrator sees a vision of her young as he himself passes away.

The novel follows an unnamed narrator who begins life in poverty, ill in a village while his father works far away in the city. After moving to the city, the narrator drifts through youth, university, and a short-lived stint in a fundamentalist organization before finding his footing as a salesman and eventually launching a water bottling empire. Along the way he marries, fathers a son, and survives a violent confrontation with a rival businessman. His fortune ultimately collapses when his brother-in-law steals the company funds, leaving him bankrupt and alone in a hotel. In old age he reunites with the pretty girl he has loved for decades, and their final years together prove to be the happiest of his life before they are separated by death.

The narrator's rise from a sick village child to a wealthy water magnate and his final years with the pretty girl.

The narrator's father stands over him during his illness and promises to bring the whole family to the city soon.

The narrator's sister learns she is betrothed to their father's second cousin, a man ten years older than she is.

The narrator begins a daily exercise regimen under the guidance of a competitive bodybuilder neighbor.

The pretty girl calls the narrator after midnight for the first time, beginning months of late-night phone calls about movies.

The narrator's mother is discovered to have a severe thyroid condition, visible as an enormous bulge in her throat.

The matriarch of the narrator's father's employer agrees to pay for the costly thyroid surgery the family cannot afford.

The narrator accompanies the organization's leader to confront a group of students caught smoking hash behind a building.

After returning home from university, the narrator finds his father aged, ill, and emotionally broken by his wife's death.

The pretty girl invites the narrator to her hotel room, where they share wine and have sex together for the second time.

The narrator takes his brother's young sons to the zoo, and his brother urges him to find someone to marry.

The narrator's sister dies of dengue fever in the ancestral village, and he travels by bus with his brother for her funeral.

The narrator bribes a bureaucrat who has been blocking his permits, writing two words on paper: 'How much?'

The narrator and his brother-in-law meet with a brigadier general who proposes a military housing water partnership.

The narrator suffers a first heart attack followed by a second while in the ICU, then recovers through successful stent surgery.

The narrator's son visits him for a month after the narrator and the pretty girl have moved into her townhouse together.

This pool traces the supporting experiences that give texture and consequence to the narrator's rise and fall. From his father's promises and his sister's unwanted betrothal to the bodybuilder's gym and the pretty girl's late-night phone calls, these events establish the world the narrator inhabits before his ambitions take over. The death of a family member and the quiet deterioration of his marriage run alongside his business victories, including bribing a bureaucrat and signing a military water contract. In old age the narrator survives two heart attacks through surgery, only to face bankruptcy and solitude, before his son's visit offers one final moment of connection in the narrator's final chapter.

Secondary moments that shaped the narrator's journey through family, ambition, and mounting loss.

The narrator gives a wrong answer in class and openly tells the teacher that the teacher himself was the one who made the mistake.

While riding his bike for the organization, the narrator spots the pretty girl's face on a jeans billboard across the city.

The matriarch drives the narrator's mother to a hospital where a doctor reveals the surgery will cost more than his father's entire annual salary.

The narrator goes to the organization's leader to ask for money to send his ailing mother to one of their medical clinics.

The organization's clinic doctor tells the narrator's mother there is nothing medical science can do and that she should pray.

Riding his bike, the narrator glimpses the pretty girl in a car at a red light, and that night pays a barber to shave his beard.

The master takes the narrator on a private car ride and reveals that a colleague caught stealing from him has since disappeared.

The narrator purchases a plot of land with a crumbling farm shed, investing his savings to prepare for expanding his bottling operation.

The narrator texts the pretty girl to announce his marriage, and she is unexpectedly struck by the depth of her own sadness at the news.

The narrator's armed guard shoots and kills the rival's young gunman, and a photo of the body circulated to the rival ends all hostilities.

The narrator's son is born, after which his wife withdraws emotionally, and the couple begins sleeping in separate beds.

The narrator discovers that government surveillance is monitoring his online searches, including visits to the pretty girl's boutique website.

Three armed robbers enter the pretty girl's boutique and fatally injure her assistant, prompting the pretty girl to leave the city entirely.

The narrator receives anonymous death threats and meets former political allies who barely conceal their satisfaction at his ruin.

The narrator and the pretty girl lie together in old age and begin laughing after being too frail to reach climax, sharing their warmest moment.

This pool highlights the specific moments of discovery and choice that fundamentally alter the narrator's course. From a schoolboy's act of defiance and a glimpse of the pretty girl on a billboard, to the shattering revelation that the organization's clinic is useless and his mother cannot be saved, each event marks a before and after in the narrator's life. His guard's killing of the rival's gunman and the birth of his son shift his understanding of power and love in ways he cannot fully articulate. The surveillance of his private life, the violent robbery that kills the pretty girl's assistant, and the couple's tender laughter in old age together form the emotional architecture of his final reckoning with what a life well lived actually means.

The key decisions and revelations that redirected the narrator's path through defiance, love, violence, and mortality.