After suffering heatstroke, Zheng Manman drifted into a dream. In it, her older brother Zheng Jun was a sacrificial character in a stepmother-themed novel.
The heroine, Bai Qin, was an educated youth sent down to their village. After the local hoodlum Zheng Jun harassed her, she was forced to marry Shao Hai, a widower with three children.
But less than two years after the wedding, Shao Hai suddenly turned out to be the illegitimate son of the head of Shao’s Restaurant, who had been living away from home. Bai Qin moved to the city and lived in luxury, raising all three children to become successful.
After Bai Qin left, Zheng Jun “accidentally” fell into a cesspit and died.
When Zheng Manman wakes up, she looks at the mud walls of their bare home, her own mother, who has been bullied into silence by Grandma and Uncle, and her baby sister crying to be fed... Zheng Manman clenches her fists, determined to change her family’s circumstances.
