Qinghe passes through Liangchuan and changes the fate of four generations of the Zhou family.
When the Qingxia Reservoir was built, Zhoujiawan and the villages along the coast sank to the bottom of the water. Zhou Shouyi, the old accountant, left a land record before moving, and his son Zhou Jingshan dedicated his life to dam construction. In the year when the reservoir was impounded, Zhou Keming was born on the way to the new village.
Many years later, Zhou Keming left the countryside with his studies, took root in the county, and witnessed his hometown's transformation from poverty and isolation to prosperity. The elder brother is in business, the younger sister is staying in his hometown, and the son is moving to the city. Everyone is looking for their own life and making different choices between family ties, future and the past.
A rare drought caused the water level to drop, and Zhoujiawan, which had disappeared for many years, resurfaced. An iron box was dug out of the mud of the old ancestral hall. The land register in the box contained eleven more households than the preserved list.
Faced with the secrets left behind by his father's generation, Zhou Keming must find out: What exactly happened back then? Where did the eleven households go? And behind the Zhou family's ability to change their destiny for several generations, who paid the price?
This is a family novel about hometown, family love and life choices. Water can flood villages, but not people's names; time can seal the past, but cannot pay off anyone's debt.
