The Crow's Return to the Nest

Eighteen years after being abducted and sold, Lin Xiaoman is finally reunited with her biological parents in Binjiang City, thanks to a breakthrough in DNA technology. Clinging to a naive faith in the power of blood ties, she walks into their European-style villa, only to discover that someone else has long taken her place: Lin Qingyu, the adopted daughter her parents have carefully raised. A Grade 10 pianist, an Olympiad champion, and a top student at an international school, she is as flawless as a porcelain doll in a shop window.

The real tragedy begins on a stormy night. When her mother instinctively shields the adopted daughter, and her father calls only Qingyu's name during a fire, Xiaoman finally understands: blood ties are nothing but an expired ticket, and she will always be a crow that wandered into a castle. But a yellowed diary discovered among the old things in the attic reveals a shocking truth: the abduction years ago was not what it seemed, and the seemingly perfect adopted daughter has a deadly connection to the kidnapper...

With delicate prose, this work lays bare the festering wounds of the Chinese family, wrapping an enduring question of identity in the guise of a story about child trafficking. When the fruit of evil blooms into a sacred flower, and the weights of blood and affection sway on opposite ends of the scales, the girl tossed about by fate will finally find her own dawn amid the ashes.