In Peiping, the twenty-sixth year of the Republic of China, artillery fire tore apart the city walls and shattered the stability of countless ordinary families. Twelve-year-old Azan carries a broken home and hope under the gray and yellow haze. He met Qinghe and Xiaoyuan in a ruined temple, which was a glimmer of light in troubled times. They struggle in the dust and watch in the suffering. Azan shouldered the responsibility with his young shoulders and held up the sky for Xiaoyuan in the cold wind. From the ruined temple in Peiping to the base in Taihang Mountain, from avoiding the Japanese army to the turmoil of the anti-revolutionary movement, Azan carried Xiaoyuan on his back, stepped on blood bubbles and mud, and held up the sky amidst the war and turmoil.
They are not blood brothers, but they are better than flesh and blood. Azan protected Xiaoyuan from growing up with a bayonet-like tenacity, and Xiaoyuan healed Azan with a doctor's kindness. The pocket watch has stopped and the willow hat has been damaged, but the bond that spans blood is like the bluestone road in the Taihang Mountains, which remains as solid as ever after wind and rain.
Reading this story, what we see is not only the way of survival of two people, but also the glimmer of light that a nation has never extinguished in suffering - as long as someone is willing to protect it, no matter how wandering the duckweed is, it will eventually find the soil to take root.
