Director: Yang Chao

Synopsis

(This film was made alone at home while the residential community was locked down during the epidemic. Due to the limited shooting conditions, it was shot from a first-person perspective in a single take.) A mouse breaks into the home of a poor family that has recently moved into a new apartment. Soon the mother and daughter come home one after the other, and their conversation reveals that this ordinary family, living in a new home and wearing ordinary clothes, is in fact under heavy financial pressure. They struggle under it, yet have long grown used to living this way. Meanwhile, the mouse is nearly discovered again and again, and the daughter finds its hole and blocks it up. With no way out, the mouse grows careless after escaping danger several times. As it makes a final desperate attempt to flee, a moment of greed gets it caught, and the daughter beats it, badly injuring it. Just as the mouse is about to die, the daughter gets a phone call: her mother has been beaten at the market for picking up discarded vegetable leaves. Moved by compassion, she lets the mouse go and rushes off to help her mother.