Chapter 41: The Novel "To Live"

Yu Hua once said: "When I was writing the novel *To Live*, the more I wrote, the more I felt that this man Fugui was living for the sake of living itself. That was the strong feeling I had, and I firmly believed in it. He went on living precisely for this reason—life demanded that he live, so he lived."

Lin Junsheng picked up his pen. Naturally, he was not writing strictly according to the original novel, but rather weaving the narrative by incorporating elements from the film adaptation of *To Live*.

Having conceived the content, Lin Junsheng began to write *To Live* on his stationery.

Yes, exactly that *To Live* known to everyone, the *To Live* that made Yu Hua watch himself live.

It was also Zhang Yimou’s most profoundly melancholic film.

I wonder if anyone ever shed tears for this story.

At any rate, Lin Junsheng had.

[In the 1940s, the year Japan surrendered.

Xu Fugui was still a well-known wealthy young master in the area.

Even the sound of his shoes clicking against the ground as he walked seemed like copper coins clinking together.

And the games he played every day were also games of clinking coins.

Though he lost game after game and accumulated a mountain of debts, he remained utterly unconcerned.

Instead, he proudly remarked that he had taken the opportunity to practice fine calligraphy.

Hearing this, Long Er, who had won against him, hurriedly forced a smile and chimed in.

This Long Er had set up a shadow puppet troupe, traveling far and wide, and was accustomed to scheming and manipulation.

Yet Fugui, heavily in debt, casually mocked his shadow puppet troupe's performance as subpar.

Long Er immediately tried to curry favor, hoping Fugui would deign to show off a few tricks.

Delighted by the request, Fugui cheerfully stepped onto the stage.

"The slave and Pan Lang share long nights, long nights upon the ivory bed where you may roam at will."

As the singing rose, it won a full house of applause.

He possessed a genuine talent for this art.

And just like that, Fugui played until dawn before finally leaving.

It was Long Er who had arranged for someone to carry him back on their back.

At this time, the muddle-headed Fugui still had no inkling of Long Er's true, ulterior motives.

As soon as Fugui stepped through his front door, his father greeted him with a torrent of fierce scolding.

Yet Fugui was long accustomed to it and snapped back with the retort, "A tiger father breeds no dog son."

It turned out that his father had also been a gambler in his youth, having squandered half the family fortune before finally breaking the habit.

Fortunately, their foundation was deep, and life remained prosperous.

After nearly driving his father to death's door with rage, Fugui returned to his bedroom.

There, he found his wife, Jiazhen, in tears. Fugui gently urged her not to upset herself and harm the unborn child.

Afterward, he lay down on the bed to catch up on sleep.

Jiazhen pleaded with him to quit gambling and live a peaceful life at home.

Yet there was no response from the bed; turning her head, she saw that Fugui had already fallen fast asleep.

Jiazhen could no longer remember how many times she had tried to persuade him.

All she felt was a profound sense of helplessness and despair.

That evening, Fugui and Long Er's gambling session resumed.

Unlike usual, Fugui's luck was exceptionally good today.

Just as he was in high spirits, unexpectedly, Jiazhen came looking for him.

Yet Fugui stubbornly refused to leave.

Jiazhen pleaded, "Fugui, just listen to me for once and come home with me."

Long Er chimed in from the side, "Master Fugui, you should go back with your young mistress. We can play another day, see, the young mistress is standing right here."

Unable to contain his irritation, Fugui cursed, "What is wrong with you? Is there no end to this? Aren't you making a spectacle of me? What are you meddling for? Go! Go! Go! Get out."

With reddened eyes, Jiazhen was driven away by Fugui's harsh scolding, and the gambling game continued.

Strangely enough, his previously stellar luck was gone for good.

Fugui lost game after game, but the more he lost, the more reckless he became, until he could no longer rack up any more debt and was forced to stop.

"Master Fugui, your credit has run out. You can't play anymore; you've lost everything."

"Lost? What do you mean, lost?"

"The property you mortgaged, converted at market value, has all been lost to Long Er. You don't have a single tile or an inch of land left."

Unawares, Fugui had actually gambled away the entire family estate.

Shedding his previous obsequious demeanor, Long Er instantly assumed a lofty posture, giving Fugui two days to pack up and leave before he came to take over the house.

Only then did Fugui realize he had fallen right into Long Er's trap.

Yet it was all too late; he stumbled out like a plucked chicken, swaying unsteadily.

Only to see Jiazhen holding their daughter and returning, though this time she was here to bid him farewell.

She had finally seen the truth—Fugui would never change.

She was taking their daughter and the child in her womb back to her maiden home, never to return.

Grief surged up from the depths of Fugui's soul, leaving his mind hollow, like a hornet's nest that had been poked through.

"It's all gone! All gone!"

Gambling debts were debts nonetheless. When Long Er came knocking to collect, Fugui's father accepted full responsibility, signing and stamping his fingerprint on the spot.

"I thought I would be able to die in this courtyard."

Generations of accumulated wealth had vanished overnight in Fugui's hands.

After signing the papers, the father raised his crutch to strike; Fugui dodged, but the old man suffered a sudden failure of breath and died right there in the courtyard.

The funeral was hastily concluded, and Long Er began driving them out.

Fugui took his mother and their remaining meager possessions away, wandering the streets trying to sell them off.

Yet he could not swallow his pride to cry out wares, and they were reduced to destitution on the streets.

Winters and summers turned; the spring and autumns passed.

Years later, Jiazhen returned after giving birth, and their daughter, Fengxia, tracked Fugui down outside, grabbing his hand and pulling him running toward home.

"Jiazhen."

"Fugui, come and look at your son. See if he looks like you."

"He looks like Jiazhen, he looks like Jiazhen. Have you given him a name?"

"I have. We call him 'Bu Du' [No Gambling]—Xu Bu Du. He'll never gamble for money again."

"Who came up with that?"

"I did. 'No gambling' is good, 'No gambling' is good. I haven't gambled since, and I won't gamble in the next life either."

"I knew it, or I wouldn't have come back."

"Is the boy really named Bu Du?"

"I was just joking with Fugui. Let's call him 'Youqing'."

"Youqing is good, Youqing is good..."

That night, the family huddled together in a rented, dilapidated shack.

Ever since losing everything, it was the first time Fugui felt that life held some hope once more.

The couple snuggled in bed for a late-night chat; in barely two years, everything had changed.

The lavish ancestral home had turned into a broken nest, and the young master had become a commoner.

Jiazhen had originally been the young lady of a wealthy family, her father the owner of a rice shop.

Knowing that Fugui had finally quit gambling, she had resolutely returned to him.

As a result, she had broken ties with her family.

Later, hoping to start some small business, Fugui went to borrow money from Long Er.

Long Er declared that he would help in an emergency, but not with poverty, and refused to lend money.

However, the tools of his old trade could be lent.

Looking at the box of shadow puppets, Fugui simply called upon Chunsheng and a few others to form a new troupe, and they began performing everywhere.

Although his mother's illness grew steadily worse, with Fugui earning money outside and Jiazhen managing the household, life finally began to show signs of improvement.

Yet good times did not last. During a performance one day, a knife slashed through the backdrop, and all the men were conscripted into the Nationalist army to haul artillery.

Watching as they marched further and further away, Fugui felt a mounting sense of panic; his wife, children, and mother were all at home, and they didn't even know where he was headed.

Fugui cast anxious glances about, wanting to slip away and run, but Old Quan saw right through his intentions.

Kind-heartedly, Old Quan warned him that running meant eating a bullet, and given these turbulent times, even a successful escape would just lead to being press-ganged again.

Either captured by this army, or seized by that army.

Hearing this, Fugui thoroughly abandoned all hope.

Deciding to focus on surviving first.

After marching for over a month, they finally arrived. Winter had set in, and they had reached the battlefield. Everyone was frantically preparing for battle, while Fugui's primary concern remained that box of shadow puppets.

Old Quan advised him to throw it away, but Fugui stubbornly refused.

"This was borrowed from someone and must be returned. We'll be counting on it to support the family later."

Seeing this, Old Quan stopped trying to persuade him.

The fortunes of war shifted in the blink of an eye, and before long, their forces collapsed like a landslide.

Wounded soldiers wailed everywhere, and Fugui and his comrades could only cower in the freezing trenches.

Thousands of surviving wounded soldiers could no longer manage to howl; they could only emit a low, muffled whimpering.

It sounded like weeping, yet also like laughter, but such a terrifying sound had never been heard in their entire lives.

Hearing it chilled their hearts to the bone, making them feel as though they were freezing to death from the inside out.

Fortunately, Chunsheng was quick-witted and stripped several sets of padded cotton winter clothes from the corpses.

The three of them put the clothes on and huddled together to sleep, losing consciousness before they knew it.

When dawn broke, the three of them awoke to a dead silence. The living had fled in terror, and the thousands of wounded soldiers had silently frozen to death to the last man.

The experienced Old Quan told the other two that the Liberation Army would soon launch a charge, and when that time came, all they had to do was surrender.

With that, he pulled his coat over his head and went back to sleep.

[End of Part 1 of 3]

[Part (2/3)]

Fugui and Chunsheng wandered around. Chunsheng excitedly climbed onto a truck; driving had been his lifelong dream, and getting his hands on the steering wheel filled him with indescribable excitement.

Just then, Old Quan walked over and asked Chunsheng where he had stripped those clothes.

It turned out the clothes belonged to their own platoon, worn by several of their sworn brothers.

With that, he plunged into the pile of corpses and began searching frantically. The other two quickly stepped in to help, but suddenly, a gunshot rang out, and Old Quan was struck by shrapnel.

They dragged Old Quan back into the trench, but he was already gone, breathless.

At that moment, the Liberation Army launched their charge. The two turned on their heels and ran, but were soon overtaken, scattering the shadow puppets all across the ground.

Yet this lucky break spared their lives, and they were incorporated into the Liberation Army, put in charge of performing shows.

After some time, Fugui returned home, the Liberation Army having provided travel expenses. Chunsheng stayed behind to become a driver, finally operating the truck of his dreams.

When Fugui reached his old hometown, it was still pitch dark, but on the street, he spotted a young girl carrying water.

Looking closer, he realized it was none other than his daughter, Fengxia.

Yet she could no longer speak, able only to smile at him.

Turning around, Jiazhen was standing not far away, carrying their son on her back.

"Jiazhen, I'm back, I'm back."

On the empty street, Jiazhen's long-suppressed tears flowed endlessly, like a tap that could not be shut off.

Back home, he learned that his mother had already passed away.

She had died on the very day he and Chunsheng were performing, passing away with her eyes unclosed.

Staring at the doorway, longing for him to return.

The government had helped bury her, and had even given Jiazhen a job carrying water; though it required waking up early, it at least brought in a little income.

Fugui was overcome with grief.

"Why did Fengxia go mute? She was completely fine when I left, but when I came back she couldn't even call me 'Daddy' anymore."

"It's a miracle she survived at all. For a full seven days, her whole body burned like fire. Everyone said the child was beyond saving, but eventually the fever broke—only she couldn't speak anymore."

Fengxia looked at her father's return with foolish joy, while Fugui's eyes turned red with smiling tears as he looked at his daughter.

Shortly after, the town mayor arrived. Fugui pulled out his documentation—he had now become a man who had participated in the revolution.

The mayor also brought news: in a couple of days, there would be a public trial for Long Er, and he was expected to attend.

Because of the ancestral courtyard Fugui had once lost, Long Er had been classified as a landlord, and the government was redistributing the housing.

Long Er had stubbornly refused, beating a cadre and even setting fire to the house, thus becoming a counter-revolutionary saboteur.

Fugui stood stunned, entirely unable to believe his ears.

"Burned that courtyard down?"

"Yeah, burned for several days and several nights. The timber in your family's house was truly fine stuff."

"No, no, that wasn't our family's timber; that was counter-revolutionary timber."

"It's *our* timber now."

"Of course, of course. You are you, and he is him, after all."

Two days later, Fugui watched as Long Er was dragged to the execution grounds. As their eyes met, every hair on Fugui's body stood on end. The departing Long Er suddenly turned his head and cried out to him.

Though he couldn't make out the words, a voice resonated deep within Fugui's heart, telling him what Long Er was shouting:

"Fugui! I'm dying in your place!"

Terrified, Fugui turned and fled, hiding in an alley to relieve himself.

Five gunshots rang out, wetting his trousers.

His legs gave out completely on the spot.

He ran home like a madman, slammed the door shut, and finally recounted the execution to Jiazhen.

"If I hadn't lost that courtyard to Long Er, those five bullets would have been meant for me."

With that, he hurriedly asked Jiazhen what class status their family had been assigned.

Hearing that they were classified as urban poor, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Only then did the couple remember the revolutionary certificate still inside his trousers.

It had been soaked through while Jiazhen was doing laundry; they rescued it just in time, planning to frame it and hang it on the wall.

Though the one executed was Long Er, the gambler-turned-young-master—having endured the destruction of his family, the loss of his home, and crawling out from a mountain of corpses—had finally died beneath those five gunshots.

In the 1950s, during the nationwide steel-smelting campaign, Fugui's family also handed over all their pots, pans, and iron utensils.

When the mayor came to take inventory, he asked if everything was accounted for.

Youqing happened to drag out the shadow puppet box; it contained iron nails, and the puppets had iron wires inside, which according to regulations also had to be dismantled.

Fugui's eyes were filled with deep reluctance.

"Mr. Mayor, do they put on shows at the steel-smelting site?"

"Yes, indeed. I used to perform for the Liberation Army; after watching my shows, they would take two mountain ridges in a day, and four ridges in two days."

"A capital idea! A capital idea! I see student troupes with Western drums and bugles at the steel production frontlines—why don't we perform shadow plays to boost everyone's morale? Don't dismantle it, leave it for them."

"Right, right, right! We won't dismantle it, we won't dismantle it."

One day, because Fengxia was mute, she was bullied by a group of local children.

Youqing charged forward to stand up for his older sister, but being outnumbered, he was pinned to the ground.

At dinner, he deliberately scooped a full bowl of hot noodles, loaded it with chili peppers, and dumped it over that child's head.

The child's parents flew into a rage on the spot, insinuating that the parents had corrupted the child.

"Who knows if you people knew about this? This is sabotage, pure and simple—sabotaging the communal canteen!"

"Right, sabotaging the communal canteen means sabotaging the Great Leap Forward!"

"Children would never pull off something like this on their own."

With such a heavy political label slapped on them, Fugui immediately ordered Youqing to apologize.

Yet Youqing stubbornly refused to budge. Enraged, Fugui gave him a thorough beating. The memory of Long Er's death had terrified Fugui to the core; at the mere thought of the consequences of "sabotage," panic seized him.

Knowing that Youqing had only been protecting his sister, Jiazhen was deeply resentful of Fugui's actions. Regret washing over him, a softened Fugui reached out and rubbed his son's head.

"Eat your dinner, Youqing. Daddy will put on a shadow play for you tonight."

"Youqing's not going. Who wants to see your crappy plays?"

That evening, still sulking, Youqing refused to leave the house.

Jiazhen urged him to go deliver tea to his father, having spiked it with plenty of vinegar and chili as a small revenge.

Taking a hearty gulp, the unsuspecting Fugui met with disaster.

"You little bastard! See if I don't break your legs."

With this small joke, father and son reconciled once more.

Before long, the town successfully smelted steel, proving that surpassing Britain and America was no mere dream.

The mayor announced that to celebrate their success, they would be eating dumplings today.

Carrying their bowl of dumplings home, the couple found that the children had already fallen asleep.

Shortly afterward, the teacher sent word for Youqing to come to school, saying a district chief was coming to inspect.

Jiazhen, aching for Youqing who hadn't slept properly in days, didn't want to let him go.

However, Fugui felt that the steel-smelting campaign was a mobilization of the entire populace, and their family could not fall behind; thus, he woke Youqing up.

Jiazhen packed a lunchbox brimming with dumplings for him to take to school.

"Does Youqing love dumplings?"

"Love 'em!"

"Do you love meat?"

"Love it."

"That's good. If Youqing listens to your dad, our lives will get better and better. Look here, right now our family is just like a little chick; when the chick grows up it becomes a goose, when the goose grows up it becomes a sheep, and when the sheep grows up it becomes an ox."

"And after the ox?"

"After the ox, it'll be communism, and we'll eat dumplings every day, eat meat every day."

Fugui painted a picture of a wonderful future for his son, never imagining that this would be the very last time he would carry his boy on his back.

In the dead of night, the district chief—who hadn't slept for four or five days—finally arrived, but while backing up his vehicle without paying attention, he crashed into the school's courtyard wall. Youqing had been sleeping right behind that wall.

Fugui looked upon his son, reduced to a bloody mess, filled with a grief and a piercing, agonizing regret.

Jiazhen rushed over but was held back by the others, who lacked the heart to let her see Youqing in such a state.

The couple wept to the point of utter despair, feeling that the heartless heavens were far too cruel—every time a glimmer of hope appeared, fate delivered another cold, ruthless blow.

At Youqing's burial, Jiazhen opened the lunchbox of dumplings Youqing hadn't managed to eat yesterday.

She added some freshly boiled dumplings for Youqing, hoping he would eat his fill and sleep soundly. Since he had followed her to carry water from childhood, he had never once enjoyed a good night's sleep; now, he could finally rest in peace.

As she spoke, infinite regret welled up within her.

Jiazhen sobbed and repeated over and over, if only she hadn't sent Youqing to school.

If only he hadn't gone.

She wanted to repent, she wanted to pray, but the ones who could hear couldn't grant it, and the ones who could grant it couldn't hear.

Shortly after, the district chief sent a funeral wreath; having recovered from his injuries, he had also emerged from the hospital, but neither wanted the wreath nor wanted to lay eyes on him.

Yet as Fugui turned around, he felt an even greater sense of the irony of fate.

"Fugui."

"Sister-in-law."

"It's me, Chunsheng. I just transferred here and hadn't gotten around to visiting you yet."

"Fugui... how could it have been your son?"

"You're the district chief? You're the one who ran my son down? I only had one son, Chunsheng, I only had one son! You knew I only had one son, yet you drove over him and killed him!"

"What kind of vehicle were you driving? What kind of car were you driving?"

Chunsheng pulled out two hundred yuan, hoping to make amends.

Not just money—he was willing to do anything.

But Jiazhen wanted only her son back.

She made Chunsheng remember: he owed their family a life.

Chunsheng could only leave in agony, but when he returned later, he discovered that Fengxia had smashed his car window to pieces. Though she could not speak a word, she wanted to avenge the younger brother who had always protected her.

Yet the sensible Youqing could no longer see it.

[End of Part 2 of 3]

[Part (3/3)]

To many successful people, time is measured in seconds, every moment worth a thousand pieces of gold; but for those mired in suffering, time is something that must be endured by gritting one's teeth and carrying the load bareback.

Every minute, every second, every hour, every day.

After Youqing's death, Fugui's family ground their way through the seconds until the 1960s.

The ten-year-long Cultural Revolution arrived.

The town mayor came knocking to advise him: burn that box of shadow puppets as soon as possible.

Those were part of the "Four Olds."

Though reluctant, the past had to be put behind them.

The family was still carrying water for a living. Although Chunsheng had tried several times to arrange a better job for Fugui, Jiazhen's health was poor, and Fugui always felt he needed to stay close by to look after her.

This time, the mayor brought another piece of news: he had found a match for Fengxia.

The next day, he brought Erxi over to their house.

Erxi walked with a slight limp, but his family had been workers for three generations—red-rooted, orthodox members of the working class.

Upon meeting Fengxia, however, Erxi remained completely tongue-tied, and Fengxia shyly hid away.

Fugui and Jiazhen were quite pleased with him, but Erxi promptly stood up and left.

As he departed, he cast assessing glances all around their dilapidated courtyard.

The marriage proposal seemed to have fallen through once more.

One day, while Jiazhen was buying fabric at the shop, hoping to make an outfit for Fengxia, someone suddenly announced that a faction of Red Guards was ransacking their home.

And the ringleader was none other than Erxi.

The couple hurried back, only to find Erxi and Fengxia whitewashing the walls upon entering.

A portrait of Chairman Mao had been put up, and the entire interior of the house had been neatly tidied up.

Erxi had used his actions to express his intentions, and the marriage was settled just like that.

Jiazhen instructed that if it wasn't too difficult, they should hold a lively ceremony.

Fengxia had suffered throughout her life; the major event of her lifetime deserved to be celebrated with pomp.

True to form, Erxi spoke little and did much.

On her wedding day, the streets were lively beyond compare. Though Fengxia could not utter a word of joy, happiness beamed from her face.

The family of four even took a formal family portrait.

Yet when Fengxia was escorted away, her eyes could not tear themselves away from her parents.

Jiazhen waved her hand, urging her to walk forward—leaving behind a life of enduring hardship, walking toward happiness.

After the crowd dispersed, the couple spotted Chunsheng. He had come to congratulate Fengxia.

Seeing the large crowd, he hadn't wanted to show his face.

Noticing his cautious, tentative demeanor, Fugui invited him inside to sit.

Jiazhen still had no desire to deal with him, seeing which, Chunsheng quietly departed.

After some time, Erxi brought Fengxia back for a visit, bringing along wine and meat, and announced some joyous news: Fengxia was pregnant.

Erxi pulled out the family portrait taken earlier, and the family felt that life was finally turning for the better.

During dinner, Erxi mentioned that Chunsheng had been targeted and labeled as a capitalist roader.

He cautioned Fugui to draw a clear line between them.

That night, a knock sounded at Fugui's door. It was Chunsheng.

Fugui told him to speak from outside the door, but Chunsheng insisted on seeing him face-to-face. After hesitating for a long time, Fugui finally opened the door.

"Fugui, Youqing's matter has always been a festering wound on my conscience."

"All these years, I've tried to send money several times, but you and sister-in-law refused it. You must accept this bankbook today, no matter what."

"You ran over here in the middle of the night just for this?"

"Just for this. Once this is settled, my mind can finally rest. I won't owe anything in this lifetime anymore."

"What on earth has happened? My wife committed suicide yesterday."

"Suicide? What happened?"

Overwhelmed by grief, Chunsheng no longer wished to live.

A man who had survived the battlefield now wanted to die.

Fugui urged him onward, reminding him that they had both crawled out of piles of corpses and surviving wasn't easy—he must not harbor such desperate thoughts.

Jiazhen, who had always avoided meeting him, opened her bedroom door at that moment.

"Chunsheng, it's cold outside. Come inside and talk."

"Ah, right, come inside and talk."

"Sister-in-law won't come in. I sneaked out for a moment and have to rush back right away."

"Chunsheng, you remember this: you still owe our family a life, so you have to live it out well."

Jiazhen's words made Chunsheng's figure pause.

As a mother, Jiazhen would always hate him.

Yet as an ordinary human being, she understood the weight of life and death.

Though she repeatedly declared that Chunsheng owed their family a life, she didn't want him to pay for it with his own.

Before, she had felt that as Youqing's mother, she had neither the qualification nor the right to forgive the one who caused his death.

Yet now, seeing Chunsheng harboring a death wish, Jiazhen wanted him to live.

Despite all the suffering, kindness remained the true foundation of her soul.

Autumn arrived in the blink of an eye, and Fengxia was close to giving delivery.

When delivering good-luck eggs to neighbors, they learned that the town mayor had also been branded a capitalist roader.

Arriving at the hospital, Fengxia was already in labor, but the hospital was staffed only by nurses.

When asked about the doctors, the nurses proudly declared that the doctors were all reactionary academic authorities and had all been subjected to struggle sessions.

Feeling uneasy, Jiazhen asked Erxi to find a way to bring back an experienced senior doctor.

Under the pretext of taking him to a struggle session, Erxi managed to bring back Wang Bin, formerly the head of obstetrics and gynecology.

If anything happened to Fengxia, at least someone with real expertise would be on hand.

Wang Bin had been starving for three days; he looked less like a savior and more like a man on the brink of the grave.

Seeing this, Fugui rushed out to buy seven steamed buns. Wang Bin grabbed them and began devouring them like a wolf.

Before long, Fengxia gave birth—mother and child were safe.

The couple glanced at the exhausted Fengxia, and their hearts finally settled.

Erxi wanted to go in for a look, but was arrogantly blocked by the nurses.

Figuring mother and child were safe, he gave up on entering.

Instead, he turned back to escort Wang Bin home.

Drawing closer, he saw that Wang Bin had eaten all seven steamed buns at once, choking so badly his eyes were rolling back.

The group propped him up and managed to get some water down his throat to help it go down.

At that moment, a nurse panicked and yelled for them to rush inside—Fengxia had suddenly started hemorrhaging heavily.

The bleeding wouldn't stop, and the nurses panicked completely.

"What are you panicking for? Think of something!"

"We're still students, we've never handled this, we don't know how—we're students, we don't know!"

"Can Dr. Wang do it? Go call him over!"

"Yes, yes, yes! Dr. Wang can do it, he's a professor, he knows how, he definitely knows!"

"Dr. Wang is a professor, Dr. Wang knows!"

Pushing forward to Wang Bin, the crowd found him gasping for breath, completely choked and bloated from washing down seven dry buns with water.

The entire hospital fell into chaos as Fengxia hung by a thread, her breath growing fainter by the second.

"Fengxia, it'll be fine in a moment. Fengxia, it's alright, Mom is right here. Don't be afraid."

After Youqing was gone, Jiazhen had thought her tears were long since dried up.

Yet the heartless heavens refused to be reasoned with, tearing open the banks of the great river within Jiazhen's soul.

And the land that had remained dry for so many years was flooded all over again.

With devastation inside and out, she watched helplessly as Fengxia, too, was taken from them.

Hardship or joy, life went on day by day regardless.

Jiazhen fell ill, and Mantou grew older—Mantou was Fengxia's child.

The family came to the cemetery to visit Fengxia and her younger brother.

Along the way, they had bought a basket of chicks.

Back home, Mantou insisted on finding a place for the chicks to live.

Fugui dragged out the empty shadow puppet box and placed them inside; it was a perfect fit.

"Grandpa, when will the chicks grow up?"

"The chicks will grow up very soon."

"And after they grow up?"

"After they grow up... when the chickens grow up they become geese, when the geese grow up they become sheep, and when the sheep grow up they become oxen."

"And after the ox?"

"After the ox... after the ox, Mantou will be all grown up."

Fugui suddenly felt a trace of uncertainty. What exactly came after the ox? Would things keep getting better?

Fugui did not know. He only knew how to live—living every single minute, every single second, every single hour, and every single day.

Lin Junsheng had altered the ending, changing it to match the film.

It was not just Fugui left in lonely isolation with his lone ox.

Mantou remained, his existence giving meaning to the rest of his days.]