In a year of terrible drought, the land lay barren for thousands of miles. Crops withered, and the dead from hunger were everywhere. Li Zheng, who had transmigrated into this world, inherited a family on the brink of ruin: his parents were both dead, leaving behind four younger siblings crying for food, and the family had been without grain for three days.
To keep his siblings alive, he braved the blazing sun to catch loaches and eels in the river, faced off against vicious servants trying to seize food with nothing but a sickle, and searched the silent mountains for wild greens and roots. Just as hope of survival began to fade, the old village chief handed him a small packet of drought-resistant wheat seeds, a faint glimmer in their desperate plight.
He cleared and sowed the village's parched common land, carefully watering it with the last drops from the bottom of a well, but this drew the covetous attention of the local tyrant, Liu Laocai. Liu seized the land, demanded exorbitant rent, and even colluded with the authorities to destroy the seedlings. At this critical moment, the villagers, who had once looked out only for themselves, stepped forward. Auntie Wang, who had lost her child; Uncle Zhang, who had lost his land; and the silent old folk all rallied around the thriving wheat, forming a wall to stand against the forces of evil.
From protecting grain to protecting crops, from looking after his family to defending the whole village, Li Zheng and his siblings joined the villagers in enduring the tyrant's harassment and pressure from the authorities. Then, on the eve of the harvest, they were struck by fierce winds and torrential rain. When golden ears of wheat finally drooped heavy in the survivors' hands, they understood: what had survived the famine was not just grain, but also hope that refused to die in the face of despair, and the warmth of people standing together.
