Story summary
During the Republic of China, Lin Xiuer was born in a poor fishermen's family in a water town in the south of the Yangtze River. Her father died young and her mother remarried. She had to take care of her younger siblings and take on heavy housework since she was a child.
When she was fourteen, her stepfather sold her to the Chen family, a wealthy businessman in the town, to work as a maid in order to pay off his gambling debts. Before leaving, her mother secretly gave her a copper coin. This was her only thought.
