I need to talk about Erya because this character absolutely wrecked me in the span of three paragraphs.
Here's this girl who is basically at the bottom of the family hierarchy—same as Xiaohe—and what does she do? She wakes up earlier than everyone else, digs up extra roots, and sneaks them to Xiaohe's door like some kind of silent guardian angel. And when she calls out from outside, her voice sounds weak. She's hungry too. She's starving and still prioritizing someone else's survival.
That's the kind of character detail that doesn't need a thousand words. It's one sentence and you're crying.
But honestly, the whole web of relationships in this chapter is fascinating. The parents—Lin Cai and Liu Yuexiu—they're lying there in pain, and their first instinct isn't to complain. It's to tell their kids to eat more because they're still growing. When Xiaohe insists they all eat together, their eyes grow red. Not because they're sad, but because they're overwhelmed by how blessed they feel to have children who care this much.
And then there's Yu Ya, who just hands over the smallest fish like it's nothing. "I caught these, so I get the big one, and you get the small one." She's being humble but also genuinely generous, and she doesn't stick around for thanks. She just leaves. That's a character who lives by her own code.
The grandmother—Qian Sancao—is the kind of villain who doesn't need to do anything dramatic. She just existing is enough cruelty. Wanting to abandon a baby, demanding they adopt a nephew instead of raising their own child, making them do all the hardest work. She's evil in the most banal, everyday way, and that's somehow worse.
