[Fleeing Famine and Farming + Mother-Daughter Growth + Female Ensemble + Everyday Family Life + No CP + Slow-Burn Management]
The year I turned eight, my father died, our land was gone, and the grain jar was empty.
The whole village set off south with their families in tow, but my mother, Liu Chunniang, stopped halfway.
Everyone said she was crazy.
A barren slope with more stones than soil, a trickle of water that took half a day to seep out, and three households with ten people who didn't even know what they'd eat tomorrow. What reason did we have to stay?
I didn't know either.
I only knew what Mother said: "If we can't walk any farther, then we stop walking."
So we put up shelters, dug the land, searched for water, and saved seeds. We traded our strength for food and our skills for work. Our greatest achievement that first year was simply that all ten of us made it to spring.
Later, there were houses on the barren slope, a well, fields, and more and more people with nowhere else to go.
A widow came with her three daughters. A woman who could write but couldn't collect her own wages came. So did people who knew how to make tofu, raise seedlings, and sew clothes.
When I was little, I always thought my mother could do anything.
It wasn't until I grew up that I understood she could be afraid, make mistakes in her calculations, and make the wrong decisions.
She had never been capable of feeding everyone.
She just kept asking, every time:
Who should get this mouthful of food?
Many years later, another group of refugees arrived at the village entrance.
A little girl asked timidly, "Is there really food here?"
This time, I answered for Mother:
"Come inside first."
