**The day they forced me to marry instead of my sister and sent me to the bottom of the mountain, I swore something silently: in this life, no one would ever take a single grain of rice from me again.**

The day I was forced to marry in place of my sister, there wasn’t a single person in the courtyard to say goodbye to me.

She was wearing a new quilted coat. The same one I’d managed to get after three years of saving every fabric coupon, starving myself, and depriving myself of everything. She was leaning against the stove, giggling softly.

—Xunhua, you can endure more than I can. In those deep mountains, however difficult it may be, I’m sure you can handle it.

The groom’s family came to pick me up with only a lame donkey and a mute old woman.

Sitting on the animal’s back, I turned around one last time.

My mother was standing in front of the door, calmly eating sunflower seeds. She didn’t even look up at me.

The man I was being married to was named Gu Huai’an. He was a high-ranking soldier on the frontier and hadn’t been home for five years. My mother-in-law said he might never return.

—Consider yourself a widow while you’re still alive. Just take good care of the few plots of land you have.

I didn’t answer.

In my previous life, I sent every grain of food and every work point I earned to my parents’ house. As a result, I starved to death on that very mountain. My mother took the last sack of grain I had left and used it to throw a lavish wedding for my sister.

And that man who hadn’t returned in five years…

Yes, he returned.

They say he knelt before two graves for three days and three nights. They say he lost his mind for a time… and then he disappeared.

Now that I’m alive again, I squeezed the donkey’s rope so hard that my knuckles turned white.

This time, nobody will take a single grain from me.

And that man who once arrived too late at my grave…

I will not allow it in this life.

The winter of 1963 seemed to seep into my bones. After crossing two mountains, I finally saw the small village hidden in the valley. The Gu family’s house was at the top of the hillside: three-quarters dirt, the fence half-collapsed, the kitchen cold, and the water tank empty.

I opened my luggage.

She only had a few changes of clothes and half a kilo of dried sweet potato.

Mrs. Zhao, Gu Huai’an’s mute mother, reached behind the stove and pulled out a small package. Inside were two black corn buns and a few dried dates. She placed all the dates in my hands. She kept half a bun for herself, which she chewed with cold water.

I stared at those dates and felt my throat close up.

In my previous life, she had been like that too.

He always left me the best.

And I, time and time again, would send the food to my parents’ house.

I squeezed the dates in my palm.

I didn’t eat a single one.

—Mother, stay with them. I’ll find a solution.

She froze. Then she wiped the corner of her eyes. Perhaps because of that word: mother. In my previous life, during my first three months in that house, I never called her that.

I didn’t sleep that night.

Leaning against the mud bed, I went over each date in my mind. Winter of 1963: I arrived here. Spring of 1964: I started sending food to my parents. 1965: My mother-in-law got sick. Winter of 1966: Snow blocked the mountains. Spring of 1967: I starved to death in that bed.

But this time I remembered something else.

I remembered when the frost would arrive.

When would the grain run out?

When would the mountain become an enemy to everyone… and an advantage to me?

Before dawn, I had already decided.

The first thing I would do is stockpile food.

And the abandoned land on the hillside…

It was going to become the beginning of everything.

Why was I the only one in that house who seemed to remember so clearly the hunger that had not yet arrived?

What had really happened in my past life that made even the word “mother” feel so heavy in my throat?

What part of this story was still buried along with those two graves that no one talked about?

What if my return to that mountain wasn’t a sentence… but the only chance to change everything before it was too late?

The first dawn on the mountain arrived colorless. The sky was such a pale gray that it seemed undecided whether it would ever become day. Xunhua got up before the neighbor’s rooster crowed. The earthen floor was frozen, and every step she took inside the house made the dry mud crunch on the walls. Zhao watched her silently from the kitchen doorway. His thin hands held the small bowl of hot water they had set aside for the morning.

Xunhua said nothing at first. She picked up an old shovel that was leaning against the corral and went out into the yard. The air was so cold that when she breathed, it felt like something was scraping her chest from the inside. The mountain was still covered in snow, but she knew that beneath that sleeping layer lay fertile soil. In her previous life, no one had touched that slope because they said it was too steep, too rocky, too useless.

But she remembered something that the others had forgotten.

He remembered the year the frost destroyed the fields in the valley.

He remembered how the wind came from the north, freezing the lower plots while the hillside was protected by the rocks.

He remembered the exact moment when the entire village ran out of grain.

He knelt on the frozen ground and began to dig.

At first, the shovel barely touched the ground. Each blow echoed with a dry sound, as if the mountain refused to awaken. But Xunhua didn’t stop. His breathing grew heavy, his hands went numb, and yet he kept digging.

Zhao appeared behind her a few minutes later.

The old woman stood silently watching, leaning against the doorframe. She hadn’t spoken for years. Some said she’d been born mute, others that the silence had come after the war. No one knew for sure what the truth was.

When Xunhua raised his head, he saw that Zhao was holding a small sack of seeds.

Corn.

The last ones left in the house.

The old woman placed them on the ground next to the disturbed earth.

Xunhua looked at her in surprise.

“Mother…” she whispered.

Zhao didn’t answer. He just nodded once.

That simple gesture made something inside Xunhua’s chest move strongly.

In his previous life, that same sack had been sent to his parents’ house in the spring.

He remembered perfectly the day he packed it.

He remembered his mother’s smile when she received him.

And he remembered how that same summer the Gu family’s barn was left empty.

Xunhua carefully picked up the seeds.

There weren’t many.

Perhaps enough for a small plot.

But for her they were more than seeds.

It was a time.

They were an opportunity.

—This time —he murmured— no one will take them.

For the next few days, he worked from dawn until darkness enveloped the mountain. He unearthed stones, leveled small steps on the hillside, and opened narrow furrows to prevent meltwater from washing away the soil.

The neighbors began to look at her with curiosity.

One afternoon, an old man passing by with his donkey stopped to observe.

“The Gu’s new wife is crazy,” he said, laughing. “Nobody grows anything there.”

Xunhua did not respond.

He kept digging.

Another, younger neighbor came by a few days later.

“That land doesn’t produce anything,” he warned. “When spring comes, you’ll be wasting your time.”

She looked up.

—We won’t know if we don’t try.

The man shook his head and left.

But Zhao didn’t move from the courtyard.

Every afternoon he would sit on a stone and watch Xunhua work.

Sometimes he carried water.

Sometimes I was just there.

One day, as the sun was hiding behind the mountains, Zhao approached with something wrapped in cloth.

It was a small field knife.

Old.

The blade was worn, but sharp.

Xunhua recognized him.

In his previous life, that knife had belonged to Gu Huai’an.

He had seen it hanging on the wall when he first arrived at the house.

But I had never touched it.

Zhao handed it over.

Xunhua held it in his hands.

The metal was cold.

—Mother… why are you giving it to me?

Zhao raised his hand and pointed at the mountain.

Then he pointed to the house.

Finally, he placed his finger on Xunhua’s chest.

The gesture was simple.

But Xunhua understood.

That knife was to defend what I was building.

That night, when he returned inside the house, the wind began to blow strongly from the north.

The same wind that in his previous life had brought hunger.

Xunhua sat down by the hearth.

He took out the dried dates he had saved since the first day.

He looked at them for a moment.

In his previous life he would have sent them to his family.

Now he cut them in half and shared them with Zhao.

The old woman greeted them with trembling hands.

As they chewed in silence, the wind beat against the mud walls.

Xunhua closed his eyes for a moment.

And the memory returned.

The cold bed.

The endless winter.

The day her legs could no longer lift.

He also remembered the sound of footsteps entering the house.

His mother.

He remembered how he had taken the last sack of grain.

She remembered her sister’s laughing voice at the door.

Xunhua opened his eyes.

The flame in the stove moved slowly.

Zhao was asleep in her chair.

Outside the wind was still blowing.

But this time she wasn’t afraid.

Weeks passed.

The snow began to melt slowly on the mountain.

And one morning, when the ice finally retreated from the hillside, Xunhua saw the first green shoots emerging from the earth.

Small.

Thin.

But alive.

The neighbors who were passing by began to stop.

“How is that possible?” asked the old man with the donkey.

Xunhua shrugged.

—The earth always responds when you listen to it.

The man stared at the sprouts for a long time before continuing on his way.

But not everyone watched with curiosity.

One afternoon a messenger arrived from the valley.

He had a letter with him.

Zhao received it first.

The old woman couldn’t read, but when she saw the name written on the envelope, her hands trembled.

Xunhua recognized the handwriting immediately.

She was family.

He slowly opened the paper.

The words seemed familiar, even before I read them.

“Xunhua,

We heard your husband hasn’t returned. Things are difficult here too. If you can send some food for the spring, your mother would be very grateful. Your sister is getting married soon, and we need help.

Xunhua held the letter in silence.

In his previous life he had responded immediately.

I had sent everything.

Even the grain that Zhao had stored for winter.

He looked at the hillside through the window.

The green shoots trembled in the wind.

Then he looked at Zhao.

The old woman was watching her with a mixture of concern and hope.

Xunhua folded the letter.

She placed it in the fire.

The paper slowly turned black before disappearing.

Zhao opened his eyes in surprise.