In the vast black land of the Northeast, Wang Shitou's name is as solid as the old elm tree at the entrance of the village. He was known as the "one-stringed man" in Kaoshan Village. The hand holding the hoe could dig through the frozen hard ground, but he couldn't control his restless heart - that heart had long been tied to Li Erya's flowered cotton-padded jacket.
Erya is a girl from Lao Li's family in Houtun. Her braids are swung prettier than anyone else's, and she can melt snowdrifts when she smiles. When she squatted by the river and beat her clothes, the rhythm of the hammer hitting the stone slab always coincided with the drumbeat in the stone's heart. But this seemingly natural relationship was thrown into a stumbling block by fate: Stone Mother's marriage was in a neighboring village, and Er Ya's father-in-law's son-in-law opened a grocery store in the town.
When the first freezing rain made the corn stalks creak loudly, Shitou bumped into Erya secretly wiping her tears in the field of corn. She held the returned embroidered insole in her hand, with unspoken words hidden in the stitches. "How about coming with me?" The sound of the stone was heavier than the frozen soil, but it frightened the sparrows on the branches. Erya didn't answer, turned around and ran into the wind and snow. The shadow of the red cotton jacket was like a fire, burning the stone's throat and tightening it.
At the beginning of spring, Shitou bought a Qinchuan cattle with the money he had saved for three years, intending to make a name for himself through breeding. Erya brought freshly steamed sticky bean buns in a basket. Looking at the sturdy animals in the cattle pen, Erya suddenly whispered: "My father said that a good family is the one who can keep me fed and clothed." The smoke coiled above their heads like an untied thread.
