At three o'clock in the morning, at the end of the alley, the braised meat shop without a signboard always lights up on time. Lao Li guarded this braised pot for twenty-one years, guarded his promise to his late wife, and guarded his son Xiaoyu.
But he kept the secret recipe of braised meat, but he couldn't keep the invisible wall between father and son.
Seventeen-year-old Xiaoyu hates the smell of braised food that cannot be washed away from his body, and even more disgusted with his father's reticence. In Lao Li's place, all concerns turned into "Are you hungry?" And all expectations were hidden in a bowl of braised pork. On the eve of the college entrance examination, a quarrel about aspirations caused Xiaoyu to slam the door and leave - he wanted to go to the farthest place and escape from this home full of braised food.
That late night, with nowhere to go, he turned back to the alley, only to see through the window an unforgettable scene: his fifty-one-year-old father crying silently over his mother's relics, his rough hands stroking the yellowed letter paper. That was a letter left by her mother to the infant Xiaoyu: "Your dad has a stupid mouth, but the softest heart... No matter where you are from now on, just come home when you are hungry, and there will always be hot rice in the pot."
A pot of braised food, half a lifetime of silence. When Xiaoyu finally understood his father's deep feelings hidden in the smoke, fate suddenly pressed the fast forward button. In the sound of gurgling braised meat, the gap between the two generations slowly stewed away. What is left behind is the aroma that has been floating for decades at the end of the alley, and an answer about home——
No matter how far you go, there is always a hot meal waiting for you to come home.
