“Mom, our family is poor. Let me quit school.”
At seven, Ning Chunying tore up her textbook, picked up a hoe, and went to work.
That year, the whole family depended on work points to get by, and her small shoulders had to bear the burden.
“Get married? Then I’ll marry a farmer!”
At seventeen, Chunying began meeting potential husbands. Stubborn and set in her ways, she ignored her parents’ advice and married a man she liked.
Her vicious mother-in-law refused to give her a plot of land? Chunying took on her in-laws single-handedly and won back her own mu of land!
Her husband was a good-natured man in the eyes of outsiders, but a spineless son who blindly obeyed his parents? She had no turning back. She had chosen this path, and even if she had to cry, she would see it through!
When her adopted daughter got into college, the whole village finally realized:
The little girl who once knew only how to farm had grown into an old locust tree, sheltering everyone from wind and rain.
“So what if I’m fifty-five?”
As her husband lay dying, she held him in her arms.
Her wrinkles creased with fierce resolve. “You treated me so badly in the first half of my life, and in the second you’re leaving me alone to care for two children. Even without you, I can live well!”
