In the 38th year of Nanwu, a three-year famine leaves the land barren and the people desperate. Starvation drives the villagers to extreme measures, including cannibalism and the trading of children for food. In Hutuoya Village, seventeen-year-old Han Luoxue, eldest daughter of Han Mingyuan, the crippled third son of the Old Han family, becomes a target. Her grandmother, Old Madam Han, plots to sell her to Liu the Butcher, a man known for torturing and killing women, in exchange for grain. Han Luoxue overhears the plan and attempts to escape, but is knocked unconscious. When she awakens, she receives the memories of the original owner, which reveal a horrific future: she will be sold, tortured to death, and her younger sister will follow. Their father will be beaten to death when he confronts the family, their mother will faint from shock, and both will be eaten by their own relatives. Their baby brother, less than a year old, will be roasted and consumed by their fourth uncle. Han Luoxue knows she must act immediately. She pretends to remain unconscious until her grandmother leaves to fetch her fourth uncle to carry her to the market. Once alone, she slips out and goes to the cowshed where her family lives. She urgently tells her father the truth. Her father, Han Mingyuan, once a skilled hunter but now paralyzed after being pushed by his ungrateful fourth brother during a wolf attack, believes her. He gives her a wolf tooth token, a keepsake from a life he once saved, and instructs her to crawl through a dog hole to seek help from Village Head Han Qiang. Han Luoxue wraps her head in a rag to avoid recognition and runs to Han Qiang. She explains her family’s situation and pleads for a family division. Han Qiang agrees to help, recalling the life debt he owes to Han Mingyuan. He arrives at the Old Han’s property just as Old Madam Han returns with the fourth son. Han Qiang announces the need to separate Han Mingyuan’s family. The Old Han family resists, but during the confrontation, Han Mingyuan’s young nephew blurts out that they plan to sell his sisters for meat. The truth is exposed, and the surrounding villagers are horrified. With public pressure and Han Qiang’s authority, the family is forced to agree to the division. There is no property to divide, and the family is destitute. Han Qiang arranges for them to move into a vacant haunted courtyard in the village, with the condition that they pay one hundred catties of coarse grain within a year to own it. The rest of the Old Han family signs the separation document, officially severing ties. Han Qiang personally carries Han Mingyuan to the new dwelling and gives them two catties of corn from his own meager stores. Han Mingyuan entrusts the grain and the separation document to Han Luoxue, recognizing her newfound decisiveness. As Han Luoxue takes the items, she discovers a hidden space within her consciousness called Nuwa’s Tear. It contains a small spring and a patch of dark soil about a square meter in size. She tests the space by storing the grain and the document, and information about the corn’s quality and planting methods floods her mind. Using mental command, she sows the corn evenly in the soil and waters it from the spring, but the effort leaves her dizzy and weak. She kneels on the ground, resting, but the seed of hope is planted. The story begins with Han Luoxue awakening from a near-death experience to face a family that would consume her own flesh and blood. With her father disabled, her mother frail, her younger sister lame from a snakebite, and her baby brother starving, she is thrust into the role of protector. Through her courage and the intervention of a grateful village head, she secures their separation from the cruel family. The acquisition of the space gives her a potential means to survive the famine, but the immediate challenges of hunger, lack of resources, and the ever-present threat from the Old Han family remain. Her journey is just beginning as she takes the first steps to carve out a new life in a world where every grain is a lifeline and family bonds are tested by the will to live. The final scene shows her planting the corn, a small act that represents her resolve to overcome the odds and build a future for her family.
