Tears on the Road to Find My Child

Beneath locust shadows in midsummer, green frost shatters; a child's words have barely faded when their speaker is gone.

A gray robe sweeps past, a child's voice falls silent; in the deep alley, tears fill the heart.

With nothing but bare walls at home, he casts off worldly concerns and takes an old photograph with him to another land.

By day, his calls for his child grow hoarse; at night, he rests by a lonely lamp, and even his dreams turn cold.

A thousand miles of wind and frost turn his temples gray; mistaking a child for his own brings disaster.

He endures every punch and kick, his body covered in blood, his resolve steel-hard.

Though mistaken for a child trafficker, he never wavers in his longing to find his child.

He only hopes his little one will return home. What does he fear from wolves and tigers along the road?

They are all parents searching for lost children, strangers who meet on the same road.

Together they hand out flyers, asking after each other's well-being, searching every street from dawn to dusk.

He helps other families reunite and rejoice, then weeps in secret beside his lonely lamp.

A hundred families are reunited, but his own flesh and blood remains nowhere to be found.

Time wears away at them, and their affection slowly fades; baseless blame brings only sorrow.

They weather ten years of storms together, but a crack made in one night can never be mended.

Their marriage certificate is torn to pieces, and two streams of tears fall as they part.

From then on, he searches alone for the face he once knew, with nowhere left to turn in this vast world.

The roof over his head is cold as ice; a child's heart learns too soon what it means to be a stranger.

In a chilly night in the woodshed, he hides an old photograph; in his dreams, he faintly calls the name he was given as a baby.

He quits school and works to make a living, bearing the storms on his shoulders as he presses on.

Half of a broken toy holds a trace of warmth; he travels thousands of miles to find his own child.

The station is flooded with people like the tide; facing the old photograph, tears surge like waves.

Twelve years of longing condense into a single instant; countless tears of hardship soak his clothes.

He tells the bitter story of their separation, then speaks again of the longing that consumed him day and night.

Hand in hand with his parents, he returns home, never again to drift through life.