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In the spring, I followed my mother back to our burned home. The bamboo forest and winding river outside the house are still as clean as they were when we left. But the house was gone, and what we saw was a crumbling, charred house, like an old man who had just passed away, shivering with fear of the cold, and his joints creaking in the wind. The furniture was all gone, and the floor was covered with black debris. I was thinking about my toy and wanted to run in, but my mother caught me and threw it outside the house, crying. Through the walls that were no longer complete, I saw my mother rummaging around in the stove hole like crazy. The earthen stove had long since cooled down and was now as cold as the house after the flames. The stove ashes were stirred up by her mother and enveloped her like mist. My mother never spoke, and my crying outside the house gradually turned into a howl. Looking at our village through misty tears, I saw many people coming back one after another, silently cleaning up their empty homes.