When Huo Tingyuan opened his eyes, he had become a useless widower in the 1970s, with a three-year-old daughter, thin as a rake, lying on the kang.
The girl called him Dad, so he accepted it.
His elder cousin’s wife kicked down the door to snatch the child, but he stared her down and forced her back. When twenty jin of grain went missing from his share, he settled the accounts and face-slapped them in front of everyone. When he was driven out of the family with nothing, he carried his daughter to a drafty shack and rebuilt their home in a single day, laying bricks, building a kang, and thatching the roof.
With a spirit spring at his disposal, this rough-hewn man protected his daughter, repaired plows, forged iron, and provided for his family.
But an old case weighed on his heart: no one had yet given an account of his late wife’s death or the writing in the ledger.
In this life, no one would lay a finger on his daughter.
