A Stormy Life

The novel describes the life course of Cao Zhili, his son Cao Zhongshi and their family from the 1960s to the early 21st century. As the branch secretary of the Quanshui Brigade, Cao Zhili offended some people because of his upright personality, serious work, and disdain for unreasonable phenomena. He was criticized during the Cultural Revolution, was dismissed from his post twice, and was reinstated twice. Finally, in the early days of reform and opening up, Cao Zhili resigned voluntarily because he could not keep up with the trend of the times and settled down to work in farming. Another protagonist, Cao Zhongshi, became a teacher after graduating from high school at the age of seventeen. Two years later, he resigned as a teacher due to dissatisfaction with the current situation and entered an official career. As a result, mistakes in the development of the pig industry caused considerable losses to the local finance. He was dismissed by his superiors for doing something wrong out of good intentions. Cao Zhongshi left his official career and went into business. He initially made some money contracting power plant projects, but later lost all his money due to a major accident during the project, and his life hit rock bottom. Despite this, he still borrowed money to pay all the workers' wages without defaulting on the debt, which was praised by the workers. Later, due to his good popularity and kind-heartedness, his career began to pick up and develop further.