[Golden Lotus] Chapter One: A Matter of Life and Death

My new story is here! Come read it on Tomato Novel. I hope you’ll enjoy it. Your support inspires me to write, and I’ll do my best to tell every story well!

The heroine, Jinlian, was born in 1930 in a village in Hubei. When she was three, her family suffered a catastrophe, and she was sent away to become a child bride. Her young body and heart had to bear immense suffering.

At six, she fell headfirst into a huge water vat while working and nearly drowned. She fell ill with a high fever. Her employer, superstitious, called in a spirit medium to perform rituals, burning paper offerings and incense to “drive out ghosts and ward off evil.” The ordeal left her at death’s door.

Years of hard labor and malnutrition stunted her growth. At sixteen, she still looked like a girl of about ten, and her originally intended fiancé rejected her. Instead, she was adopted as a daughter. At eighteen, her adoptive mother arranged her marriage.

Because she remained childless for years, she was often beaten by her husband’s grandmother. She did not become pregnant until she was twenty-two. The hardships of her life as a child bride, from early childhood through her teenage years, had hindered her development. Her pelvis had not widened, and she carried the baby for twelve months. After four days and five nights of obstructed labor, she survived against all odds and gave birth to a boy.

Through her resilience and determination to survive, she eventually won her freedom. She worked hard to pursue an education and took an active part in building the new China. In the end, she found her birth mother, and her father, who had joined the Red Army and gone far away, found her too.