In Shandong in 1904, the sky seemed shrouded in a gloomy curtain. Days of torrential rain had swollen the Yellow River, and muddy floodwaters burst through the embankments, drowning fields and villages. Withered wheat stalks floated on the surface like countless struggling, lifeless hands, unable to grasp a shred of hope. Between the field ridges, once-fertile land had become a muddy swamp. The few crop roots poking out of the water looked like the severed limbs of a dying man, announcing the utter ruin of the harvest. The Zhu family's mud-brick house swayed in the wind and rain. Gale-force winds tore the thatch from the roof and flung it into the muddy water with a dull thud. Zhu Kaishan stood in the doorway
