Abstract: Yan Zhen takes “people” as the core elements of the narrative of his novels. Through the combination and change of the relationship between male and female love to promote the plot development, in advance of the rhythm of the plot of the novel on the survival of thinking and the spirit to observe; through a combination of one or more groups of characters in the control and in the unity of opposites to explore soul, expression of philosophical thinking; through dummy historical figures, constitute the spirit background and spiritual undercurrent, let the characters in the novel in the difficult survival situation to carry out the spirit of reference, life enlightenment. In the combination of multiple characters, Yan Zhen's novels form a vertical and horizontal cross, three-dimensional multi-dimensional novel narrative coordinate system, so as to reveal the survival situation and spiritual dilemma of the characters in the transition period.