Among the ravines and ravines of the Loess Plateau in northwestern Shanxi, ten-year-old Zhang Zhenshan huddled in a dilapidated cave dwelling. In order to "promote a future", his parents Zhang Youfu and Li Xiulan tightened their belts and sent him away from the mountain village. From the town's junior high school, to the county high school, to the distant Southern University, Zhang Zhenshan's journey home became longer and longer, from a week, half a month to a semester. Every time he left home, the ardent expectations in his parents' eyes and the words "just wait until graduation" were his only comfort and shackles.
After graduating from college, Zhang Zhenshan was eager to return to his hometown to fulfill his filial piety, but he encountered unprecedented strong opposition from his parents: "There is no future in this small place, go out and make a career!" With loss and confusion, he left again and joined the coastal special zone. Faced with the loneliness of a foreign land, the pressure of survival, and the language barrier, he worked hard to improve his skills and study for on-the-job qualifications, just to save enough "profit" as soon as possible and return to the yellow land that he always dreamed of.
Many years later, Zhang Zhenshan, who had gone through many hardships, was finally transferred back to his home province. However, what awaited him was not the happy faces of his parents, but the dazzling obituaries at the entrance of the village and two cold tombs on the hillside. Things have changed in his hometown: the dilapidated old house is full of dust, his childhood friends are strangers, and he feels like an out-of-place "outsider" in the workplace. The huge loss and the heartache of not being able to fulfill his filial piety gnawed at him day and night.
Kneeling in front of his parents' graves and kowtowing heavily, Zhang Zhenshan carried his simple luggage and looked back for the last time at the loess plateau where his parents were buried and where his homesickness had been buried for half his life. The back figure disappeared in the diffuse smoke and dust, leaving only a sad question that runs through life: going around in circles, wandering for half a life, escaping and returning, where is the real hometown?
