Alone on the Road to Escape Famine

Black frost crushed the wheat fields and froze the Su family's bonds of kinship.

Su Yan guarded the coarse porcelain bowl her mother had left behind and the young sparrow, fighting desperately to protect the last of the seed grain through the famine. But she could not hold back the greed of her Third Aunt Zhao Guifen's family. They came to seize their food, stole the seed grain she had hidden, took over the heated kang, and snatched away the lifesaving herbs. In the face of hunger, blood ties became the sharpest of knives. When her aunt, trying to save her son Fuzi, went so far as to report Su Yan for hoarding grain and even planned to hand the sparrow over to the clan in exchange for a chance to survive, Su Yan finally raised a stone, shattering her last illusions about family.

On the road fleeing the famine, she met an outsider named Lu Zheng and crossed paths once more with her aunt's family, now cornered by desperation. As betrayal and redemption intertwined, she watched the aunt who had once shared half a malt candy with her become bait, abandoned by her own son. At last, Su Yan understood: family was never a shackle forged by blood, but the warmth of someone willing to share half a steamed bun with you in a blizzard, and the sense of responsibility that meant giving up their padded coat for a child in the direst of times.

In her new home, she watched Lu Zheng teach the children to write and the sparrow make bamboo baskets with the neighbor's kids. Only then did she understand: what gets people through famine is never food, but the courage to choose and protect.