Fleeing Three Thousand Miles With My Family in a Catastrophe-Ravaged World

[An ancient-era disaster tale, realistic survival, an ensemble family story, and a heroine with no golden finger]

In the seventeenth year of the Jingtai era of the Great Jing dynasty, the sky fell.

Snow fell in June, and the earth shook. A thousand miles of land dried up, then floods surged across the world. Locusts swept through, leaving not a blade of grass behind. Sixteen-year-old Liu Ya’er led her entire family on a three-thousand-mile journey south in search of survival.

Her father was a slow-witted farmer, her mother a loud-voiced penny-pincher, her grandfather could read the weather, and her grandmother knew folk remedies. Her eight-year-old brother only knew how to eat and cause trouble. She had no golden finger and no powerful benefactors. All she had were eyes that could see through everything and one stubborn belief: if you’re alive, you have to keep moving toward a way to survive.

On snowy nights, she hid her body heat beneath the ice. In the ruins, she dug out food. In the drought-stricken fields, she followed the reeds to find water. During the locust plague, she used ancient fire tactics. Before the floodwaters came, she raced to higher ground. They crossed the Taihang Mountains and the Yellow River, traversed scorched earth, and forded the Huai River. Some died along the way, some betrayed their companions, and some gave their lives to save others.

After they crossed the Huai, the quiet young hunter Gu Changfeng joined their group. He didn’t know he was descended from a disgraced official. He only wanted to protect the girl with the brightest eyes.

Later, they put down roots on the southern coast, making salt, harvesting pearls, and brewing sauces. When a typhoon destroyed everything, she said only four words: “We’ll build it again.” From a refugee girl to a businesswoman, she always held to one rule: never profit from disaster.

The road was long, and the weather was bitterly cold. But as long as you kept walking, you were still alive.

Many years later, someone asked her how she had made it three thousand miles. She replied, “You keep walking, and a road appears.”

Disasters cannot take away this truth: people’s roots aren’t in the ground beneath their feet, but in the people beside them. As long as your loved ones are there, wherever you go becomes home.