The Shackles of Marriage

When Zhuzi was ten, her parents divorced. After the three siblings lived with their grandparents for a year, their father stopped sending money home. After a dispute, the three of them moved out of their grandparents' house. Their father worked away from home and gave the siblings just ten yuan a month for living expenses. After finishing elementary school, Zhuzi went to work in the city. At the factory, she was considered one of its beauties. Those were the happiest days of her life.

At twenty, she met her husband, Zhang Fugui, at the factory. Everyone there said Fugui was the kind of man suited for a steady life. As it happened, Fugui was also one of the men pursuing Zhuzi.

And so Zhuzi got together with Fugui. Before long, she was pregnant, and the two married in the countryside.

Zhuzi went from someone with boundless hopes for the future to a bona fide housewife. The wear and tear of daily life left her without a glimmer of hope. Now that she was old, all she wanted was to get through the rest of her life as quickly as possible.

If she could live again, she hoped to be free.

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.