A Dust Mote’s Chronicle

The night wind wailed, and the cold moon shone like frost.

In the fields outside Little Li Village, dead grass rustled as if weeping, or perhaps sighing. Pale moonlight spread over the muddy paths between the fields, revealing a staggering figure: a woman in tattered clothes, with disheveled hair and a gaunt face, clutching a baby born before its time to her chest.

Her steps were unsteady, as if she might collapse at any moment, yet she stubbornly pressed on toward the Luo Gu River.

She had no home left.

Her husband had become addicted to gambling and racked up debts he could never repay. His creditors beat him to death in an alley. Her parents ran around trying to raise money, caught a chill, and died one after the other three days later. And her child had been born on the most desperate day of all.