In late autumn, the Hongqi Army compound in Hezhou City. On the third day after Shen Ruian came back from the educated youth center, his stepmother Liu Guifang piled a sack of briquettes at his door: "When you have free time, light the stove in the east compartment. Your brother has to do his homework." He said nothing and bent down to move the coal. His biological father, Shen Weiguo, was sitting in the main room reading the newspaper without raising his head. At night, Shen Ruian dug out the iron box left behind by her mother before she died - the house deed, passbook, a stack of IOUs, and the letter of guarantee written by her father to her. Liu Guifang didn't know these things were still there. What he didn't even know was that the "scrap iron" he bought for two yuan at the Corps' garage sale - a solar power bank - could actually store electricity and power his semiconductor recorder. The next day, he secretly recorded his stepmother showing off to others in the corridor: "That house has been mine for a long time, and he, an outsider, still wants to fight for it?" Shen Ruian wiped off the soot from his hands amidst the slight rustle of the tape. When the family is divided to seize property, what he wants is not just a bowl of water but a bowl and a pot, all taken away.
