In the winter of 1930, peddler Xue Shouyi dreamed that Guanyin gave him a child. The next day, he found an abandoned baby wrapped in pink swaddling clothes and named her Nian'en, planting the family’s roots in kindness and gratitude. From then on, through warlord infighting, the flames of the War of Resistance, and the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, the Xue family always lived by kindness. Shouyi walked the streets and kept to his “three rules of never,” risking his life to serve as a liaison for the Eighth Route Army. As a boy, Nian'en hid medicine for the Eighth Route Army. As an adult, he left the city to return to his hometown, then went to Korea to fight. After he died in battle, his spirit returned beneath the peach tree. His granddaughter Xue Tao carried on her ancestors’ legacy, teaching kindness and founding a “Hall of Morality” to preserve their devotion to family and country. The peach tree in the courtyard, planted to fulfill Xiulan’s final wish, grew thick with branches and bore fruit. It witnessed the Xue family’s partings and reunions, sacrifices and growth, while reflecting the warmth of the people of Baoding Prefecture helping one another through the tides of history. In four volumes titled “Root, Trunk, Flower, and Fruit,” the book closely intertwines personal bonds with family and country, telling an epic of the times about an ordinary family whose strength is kindness and whose soul is love.
