Hao-Pu Lin

Xiaoyue finds that her mother has been working for a long time away from home when she receives the apples sent from her mother. Just entering her puberty, Xiaoyue comes from a new immigrant family from Vietnam. She is laughed at and bullied in school because her old father makes a living as a scrap collector. The rebellious Biyan always stands out for Xiaoyue. She even plans a three-day journey to see her mother with Xiaoyue. Ms. Chen is faced with a dilemma. She is going to retire but the after-school tutorial class in the community is the only place for her to care her students. For Xiaoyue and her friend Biyan, her class is their hope.

Set in a newly engineered mega-city centered entirely around a massive power plant, the story explores a future society where technology and automation have advanced solely to cater to human laziness. Deep inside the colossal city power plant, the scientists "keep the lights on" through an eerie, hidden secret: forcing a captive giant to continuously pedal a bicycle to generate the city's electricity.

Xiaoyue finds that her mother has been working for a long time away from home when she receives the apples sent from her mother. Just entering her puberty, Xiaoyue comes from a new immigrant family from Vietnam. She is laughed at and bullied in school because her old father makes a living as a scrap collector. The rebellious Biyan always stands out for Xiaoyue. She even plans a three-day journey to see her mother with Xiaoyue. Ms. Chen is faced with a dilemma. She is going to retire but the after-school tutorial class in the community is the only place for her to care her students. For Xiaoyue and her friend Biyan, her class is their hope.

Xiaoyue finds that her mother has been working for a long time away from home when she receives the apples sent from her mother. Just entering her puberty, Xiaoyue comes from a new immigrant family from Vietnam. She is laughed at and bullied in school because her old father makes a living as a scrap collector. The rebellious Biyan always stands out for Xiaoyue. She even plans a three-day journey to see her mother with Xiaoyue. Ms. Chen is faced with a dilemma. She is going to retire but the after-school tutorial class in the community is the only place for her to care her students. For Xiaoyue and her friend Biyan, her class is their hope.

Set in a newly engineered mega-city centered entirely around a massive power plant, the story explores a future society where technology and automation have advanced solely to cater to human laziness. Deep inside the colossal city power plant, the scientists "keep the lights on" through an eerie, hidden secret: forcing a captive giant to continuously pedal a bicycle to generate the city's electricity.