On the sixth day of the Lunar New Year in 2025, 48-year-old Su Qingfeng watches as the son he raised from childhood gets blackout drunk at his wedding. Thinking over his life, he realizes that although he never had much, he has already worn himself down with illness trying to make life better. He hasn’t drunk since his divorce, but today he gets drunk. He already has heart disease, and now his heartbeat grows faster and faster as his consciousness gradually fades.
The roof creaks overhead. His father gets up and lights an oil lamp. He opens the door, only to find that snow has packed tightly against it. He hears his panicked mother, scolded by his father, spread the quilt from the kang bed onto the floor, then set his whimpering little sister by the edge of the kang. She tugs hard at him, but he can’t wake up. He’s conscious, but his head hurts unbearably. Confused memories become entangled with those of the body’s original owner, flashing through his mind like a series of images.
With a crack, Su Qingfeng opens his eyes just as he sees his father shove his mother onto him. The roof collapses.
