In the book, Pan Yin-hua is an Aboriginal woman who works as a servant in a Han Chinese landowning household. After she and the family's second son have a son of their own, she opts not to accept an easy life in the big house, feeling she cannot accept the indignity of being "cared for like livestock."
文中為漢人地主幫傭的平埔族少女潘銀花，在生了地主家二少爺的兒子後，沒有選擇在大宅院裡過著安逸生活，反而覺得不能當個「被人餵養的牲畜」，於是帶著孩子前往原是屬於她的土地。