A news report on her phone covers a decades-old murder and dismemberment case. A faded, yellowed family photo in the reporter's hand catches the eye of Su Mai, who is eating noodles at a noodle shop.
According to the reporter, police investigations show that everyone in the photo has died, except for the adopted daughter who ran away from home all those years ago. Her whereabouts remain unknown.
The photo belonged to Jin Meiyu, the murder victim, whose bones indicated that she was around twenty years old when she died.
Neighbors of the Jin family said that in the winter of 1972, their adopted daughter, Su Mai, left home in a huff because she was unhappy with the marriage her adoptive father had arranged for her. The family searched for her but found nothing. From then on, the eldest daughter, Jin Meiyu, also disappeared without a trace.
The following year, the head of the Jin household went to the front lines and was killed in action. His wife, Cheng Xianglan, was unable to bear the loss of her husband and daughter, and fell gravely ill.
From then on, their eldest son, a doctor, stayed at the hospital to care for his mother.
But just as her condition improved, the eldest son took her home. On the way, they were hit by an out-of-control transport truck, and both mother and son died.
The second son couldn't bear the tragedy and went to the countryside as an educated youth. In the summer of 1975, floods struck the place where he had been sent. He jumped into the floodwaters to save someone and drowned.
The youngest daughter of the Jin family, left with no one to depend on, was falsely accused of bullying a coworker in the spring of 1977. Depressed, she hanged herself at home.
Dead. They were all dead. The news sent Su Mai into convulsions, and then she collapsed to the ground.
As she lay dying, she seemed to hear a voice ask her, "Su Mai, if you had one chance to return to the past, would you still choose to escape your marriage, leave home, and sneak across the border to Hong Kong?"
Theme: Not figured out yet
