In 1980, Lin Wan, the prettiest temporary worker at the old town silk mill, had her chance at a permanent position stolen by her childhood sweetheart’s family, who used their connections to claim it for themselves.
Her relatives sighed, the neighbors looked down on her, and everyone said that her quiet family would never get back on its feet.
No one expected that on the day she broke off the engagement, Lin Wan would haul away a broken sewing machine and set up a tiny fabric stall right on the street.
People scoffed that defective fabric could never make good clothes. Armed with a megaphone, she took one look at each customer’s figure and declared, "No measuring needed, I'll cut it to fit." One pair of Hong Kong-style flared trousers caused a sensation at the waterfront morning market!
One person earned a little money, and the whole family changed their fate:
Her quiet mother handled fabric piecing, her honest father worked the treadle, a laid-off tailor with a limp took charge of the patterns, and her cousin, who was always pleading poverty, put together a packaging team...
In a small backyard, they managed to build a family production line that supplied the entire canal network!
From staking a claim at the morning market to chartering boats in a rainstorm, from learning to identify fabric by feel at a county trade fair to bidding for and acquiring the entire old silk mill.
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.
