The rain on the third day of the twelfth lunar month was like ice particles, hitting the rotten straw mat in the Shen family's thatched house on the outskirts of Qingzhou Prefecture. When sixteen-year-old Shen Mingzhao was awakened by the falling raindrops, his father Shen Qingshan's heartbreaking coughing and wheezing could be heard from the other end of the earthen bed. She looked towards the wall in the dark - half of yesterday's rain-proof yellow mud had collapsed, and the cold wind blew rainwater straight into the haystack where her third brother, Shen Yuan, was huddled. The child's lips were purple from the cold, but he did not dare to say a word. He only tightly protected the broken clay pot in his arms, which contained the wheat seeds he secretly cultivated...
