The Whole Family Flees Famine? The Little Dumpling Hunts the Hills and Eats Meat at Every Meal

Mountain Foraging + Farming + Fleeing Famine + Adorable Child, Beloved by All + Mountain Treasure Hunting + Lighthearted Wish-Fulfillment + Healing Family Bonds + No Toxic Relatives + Cute Animal Companions + Everyday Life + Food + Infrastructure Building While everyone else fleeing famine chews tree bark, Sang Xiaoman heads into the mountains with a little bamboo basket, digging up wild yams, gathering wild eggs, and even bringing home a prince for a father. The year Sang Xiaoman turned four and a half, her father disappeared, her mother fell gravely ill, and her grandmother and the rest of the family were driven out of their shabby hut. The villagers all called her a jinx, because a mountain flood had washed away half a mountain on the day she was born. Only Sang Xiaoman knew she wasn't a jinx. She could hear the voices of the mountains. A pheasant said, "Xiaoman, there are lots of eggs to the east!" A wild boar said, "Don't go any farther. There are bad people ahead!" An old ginseng root clutched its head and shouted, "Come dig me up! I'm already three hundred years old!" So while everyone else fleeing famine ate tree bark, Sang Xiaoman took her whole family into the mountains to gather goods for market. On the first day, she dug up a basketful of wild yams. On the second, she found a little black bear that could deliver messages. On the third, she rescued a handsome man with amnesia. When he woke up, he insisted on being her father. Sang Xiaoman said, "We don't need another father, unless you can cook, farm, and beat up bad people." The man rolled up his sleeves on the spot. "I can do all of that." Later, the Sang family went from a poor household that couldn't get enough to eat to the richest family in the village selling mountain goods. During the famine, they grew crops that yielded a thousand jin per mu. During the drought, they dug up running water. When bandits came to steal their grain, the whole village chased them for thirty li with hoes in hand. Even the nobles who came from the capital lined up to ask for baskets of the Sang family's mushrooms. One day, the father who had been missing for years showed up at their door.