The Years Grind Down the Family's Legacy

This novel follows Dong Zheng's life, telling the story of a family's rise and decline amid the tides of the times, as well as the quiet warmth shared by an ordinary couple over half a lifetime.

Youth: A fall from the clouds

Dong Zheng was born into the Dong family of Sidu. His father was a successful candidate in the imperial examinations at the end of the Qing dynasty, and the family was wealthy, with a long literary tradition. Dong Zheng studied from an early age and was admitted to a teachers' college, becoming the family's great hope. But the times changed dramatically. His family was branded as landlords, their property was confiscated, and his father died with bitterness in his heart. Forced to leave school, Dong Zheng watched his mother starve to death. Once a favored son of heaven, he became a destitute young man with no one to rely on, crushed beneath the wheels of history.

Young adulthood: A meeting amid storms

With his family destroyed and his loved ones gone, Dong Zheng scraped by in a dilapidated thatched hut, tasting every kind of human warmth and cruelty. One night, Master Li, a blacksmith, came to propose a marriage, offering his unfortunate niece Suying to him. At the village entrance, Dong Zheng saw Suying, abandoned by her own family and crying herself hoarse. Two people cast aside by fate met amid the chaos of war, their vulnerability and tenderness colliding. He married her, and with a small side room, built a home for the two of them.

Middle age: Supporting each other through hardship

Life after marriage remained poor. Famine, rumors, farmwork, and illness came one after another. Dong Zheng worked in silence while Suying gently managed the household. They supported each other through one hardship after another. Dong Zheng's aunt Aying secretly helped them, while the neighbors' kindness and malice intertwined, painting a vivid picture of life among ordinary people. Their love was nothing grand or dramatic, but in a bowl of wild greens porridge and a patched cotton coat, they became each other's most dependable refuge.

Later years: A poem written by time

The storms of the times gradually subsided, and Dong Zheng and Suying's life grew more peaceful. They achieved nothing earth-shattering, yet amid the everyday routines of life, they held on to their conscience and to each other. The family's shattered glory, the hardships they endured, and the injustices they suffered all mellowed into tenderness with the passing years. Through his life, Dong Zheng proved the strength of ordinary people and wrote one of the most moving stories of love and warmth amid an era of chaos.

Theme: Using the life of a scion of a prominent family as a window into the ups and downs and resilience of ordinary people in a great age. This is no tale of a triumphant comeback or melodramatic plot twists. It is simply about how two people burdened by misfortune warmed each other through turbulent years, holding on to their conscience, to each other, and to their small corner of everyday life. It shows readers that the tenderness and resilience of ordinary people are also a force that can defy fate. The story is adapted from real family history, showing the changing times and everyday hardships through the eyes of a married couple.