A long heart-felt conversation between two 
friends, who grew up together on the 
campus of a medical school in a provincial 
capital in the 1980s. An intimate moment, leading to the long-due expression of untold 
feelings, but also patching together their 
family stories, tragically intertwined and 
deeply troubled by an unsolved crime during the Culture Revolution. On that rainy night in 1967, what
 happened in the deserted water tower on
 the campus? How did a nail lead to the completely different destinies of the two families?

As the conversation continues, will the long-buried story of the grandparents of the two narrators, one a highly respected academician, the other a vegetable lying on the hospital bed for decades, finally be unravelled? An upmarket literary thriller, Cocoon delves into the complexity of a crime set in one of the most chaotic years of contemporary China. We hold our breath as the protagonists embark on a tortuous journey towards catharsis, revealing a longing for reconciliation still at odds with China’s troubled relationship with its own past.​