In 1960, in Chenwa Village in the plains of eastern Henan, 12-year-old Chen Shouyi lost his parents and younger brother one after another to famine and became an orphan overnight. With his childish body, he withstood the crushing years and struggled to survive in the wasteland. He once met Lin Xiu, an orphan girl with the same fate, and briefly tasted the warmth of the world, but a heavy rain robbed him of all the light.
For the next half of his life, he closed his heart, never got married, had no relatives or friends, and was as silent as stone. He faced life, old age, illness, death, and the warmth and coldness of human relationships alone with his hard bones. From a boy to a grown man, from a barren age to a stable one, he lived his life as the most silent shadow in the village, guarding an empty house, thinking about the people who passed away, and living a life without a wife, children, dependence, and dependence.
