The Shuiquan Family

[Rural life] [Period] [Not a wish-fulfillment story] [No formulaic plot] [Hardship] Everyone in Shuiquan Village says Guo Youcai's life is over. His wife ran off, leaving two "burdens" at home. The older one dropped out of school to find work, while the younger spends all day chasing chickens and teasing dogs. The three of them are barely related by blood, yet they've ended up bound together like grasshoppers on the same rope, worrying about where the next meal will come from. Everyone gives them a wide berth. But one woman takes pity when she sees the two scrawny kids. A brown-sugar flatbread and a bowl of hot soup: she only meant to help them out with one meal, but somehow she steps right into the mire of this "last-of-the-line" household. This is a story about "taking in" and "saving." He took in two sons; she took in his whole family. Strangers with hardly anything in common somehow manage to warm each other's lives in the most overlooked corner of the world.