Song Yihe returned to Qinghe Town, which he had not returned to for three years, to finish the funeral arrangements for his mother Chen Xiulan. When sorting out the belongings, she pried out a welded iron box from under her mother's bed - inside were seven fake household registration books, with seven different names and different photos, all in their early twenties. There was a note at the bottom with six words: Don't trust your dad.
She always thought her mother was a taciturn ordinary housewife, but there was a diary in the iron box. The first page read: "March 17, 1998. This is the third year that I have used the name 'Chen Xiulan'. I don't know how long I can use it."
My mother is not Chen Xiulan. Who is the mother? Who are the seven fake household registrations for? What does "Don't trust your dad" mean?
The process of a daughter getting to know her mother again is also the process of a small town's secrets that have been dusty for twenty years being revealed layer by layer.
