Following her father's recent passing, fifteen-year-old Xie Shiyu is forced by her grandmother and uncles to be sold off in marriage for money. Seeing through the Cheng family's schemes, she uses a blade to force a family separation, taking her mother, younger brother, and younger sister to move into a rundown courtyard to survive. In this desperate plight, she rescues a wise crow that can speak human words and understand bird language. Relying on her father's herbal medicine manual, she ventures into the mountains to forage for herbs, hunt game, and protect her family. Step by step, she turns her life around in the famine years, while also getting entangled in a much larger storm involving her father's background, a crescent jade pendant, and deep mountain shadows.