In Lijia Hollow, beneath skies thick with yellow dust, the Li family welcomed Xixi, the little girl they had waited years for. Like a dewdrop sweet with the scent of morning, she instantly became the apple of everyone's eye. Her tough-as-nails father, Li Dashan, could swing a hoe and carry a shoulder pole, but he couldn't bear to let Xixi suffer even the slightest hardship. Whenever he went to market, he always remembered to bring home a piece of candy. Her nimble-fingered mother, Wang Xiulian, was constantly busy mending clothes and doing laundry, yet always saved the softest cotton cloth to make Xixi a little jacket. Her fiercely protective grandmother even took out her retirement savings just to buy her granddaughter an osmanthus cake. Her sensible older sister, Chunyan, patiently taught her to read, while her mischievous older brother, Tiedan, became her "personal bodyguard." If anyone dared bully his little sister, he would be the first to throw a punch. Little Xixi was born with a clever streak: she could sweet-talk her tired mother after a long day's work, share the candy she had secretly saved with Huzi, a boy with no parents, point at wild vegetables in the fields and say, "These are edible," and hand her father the most useful vine when he was weaving baskets. Like a sun-loving seedling, she grew up surrounded by her family's affection, bringing countless little joys to their poor farming life with her soft voice and innocent eyes. From toddling after the chickens and ducks to following her sister with a little basket to gather mulberry leaves; from secretly saving half a flatbread on the kang for her mother to laboriously writing the character for "home" on a small slate... Every step of Xixi's growth was steeped in the warmth of family. She knew nothing of grand principles, yet with her purest kindness, she brought harmony to the neighbors and unity to her family, filling their once-quiet farmhouse courtyard with laughter every day.
