When summer came, several students, including Chuchu, left for the summer camp in Belarus accompanied by their teacher, Miss Vera. Xiaoman remained behind in Moscow. During this time the Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, and leaving Moscow half evacuated after the invasion, and Xiaoman was soon left to survive on his own in a land that he knew little of. For a time he was a homeless child begging and stealing on the streets, forced to sell blood so he could get money for food (only to be robbed by others later). He eventually found a job delivering condolence letters to families of fallen soldiers. At one apartment, he found an orphaned girl (whose mother died silently due to starvation and illness) and took her in as though she was his own daughter.