Dragonkeeper

At some point during the long Han period in China, an 11-year-old enslaved girl is forced to work for Master Lan, a lazy old man in charge of the remote palace at Huangling. The emperor never visits this place personally, but he does keep the imperial dragons there. The girl tends to the dragons because Lan does not want to fulfill his duties, but the dragons are weak and old, and they refuse to eat. Lan constantly complains that the dragons were supposed to live at the palace and function as an omen for the kingdom’s health, but years ago, they had bitten the current emperor’s father, so they were sent away. These days, the girl spends her time starving and suffering from the cold and enduring Lan’s abuse. She is friendless except for her secret pet rat, Hua.

One day, the girl takes the dragons’ dinner for herself when they refuse to eat it. During the night, she steals oil from Lan’s lamp and sneaks to the abandoned palace to admire the art, which depicts beautiful places and flowers. She does not believe that such a place can exist. As she returns to her ramshackle home and eats dinner by the fire, she remarks that her life isn’t so bad.