Half Piece of Cake

Half a loaf of bread, four generations, a hundred years. 1912, Shahe store, Shandong. A farmer squatted on the edge of the field and grabbed a handful of soil. Where the soil is, the roots are there. For nearly a century since then, the lives of four generations have been tied to a few things: an old land deed, half a piece of mixed bread, a pen that could not be brought back from the battlefield, and a letter that read "Don't wait for me." Chen Shouzhuo had been guarding the land all his life, but every inch of it was gone. His son Chen Qiming left home to fight against Japan and wrote "I'm afraid" in a cave in Taihang Mountain. He burned the two words halfway and pressed them out with his fingers. His grandson Chen Jianguo entered the factory at the age of sixteen and spent his whole life screwing screws. During the years when he was laid off, he told his apprentices that skills are in your hands. The great-granddaughter Chen Nian'an stood in front of the new century, carrying a green tin box to find a person who had been remembered for sixty-two years by half a piece of cake. They're not tall, they're not big, and they're not complete. They have been hungry, afraid, and bent over. But after bending down, he straightened up inch by inch. This is a hundred years of a family, and a hundred years of a piece of land growing inch by inch.