Dad Died in Battle in 1970, and Three-and-a-Half-Year-Old Me Takes Care of the Whole Family

"Three hundred and twenty yuan in compensation is mine. Sell the worthless girl, and have my daughter-in-law remarry for a bride price."

Winter, 1975. The notice of her father's death had barely arrived when her cruel grandmother wanted to sell three-year-old Niannian.

Her timid mother was forced into a corner, her hand gripping a sickle and trembling uncontrollably.

Niannian stopped crying.

Because she saw a line of text no one else could see:

[Father Shen Weiguo, status: trapped and suffering from hypothermia, 71 hours remaining.]

Her father wasn't dead.

But no one believed a three-year-old child.

That was all right.

She could also see the black cloud hovering over her grandmother's head.

More than four hundred yuan in three years of allowances, all hidden in a biscuit tin in the kang bed's cavity.

Niannian revealed where the money was hidden. They dug it up, and not a cent was missing.

Her second aunt climbed in through the window in the middle of the night to steal her away? One clay jar smashed her face to a pulp.

Who says a three-year-old is easy to bully?

"Anyone who laid a hand on my wife or daughter, step forward."

A jeep rolled through the snow at the village entrance. The man everyone thought was dead had a star on his shoulder now. Leaning on a cane, he limped into the courtyard.

The whole awful family was so frightened their legs went weak.

But as Niannian clung to her father's shoulder, she saw the countdown above his head start ticking again:

[Crisis unresolved. 29 days remaining.]