When Li Xiaocao was three, human traffickers abducted her and sold her into the mountains as the Li family’s child bride. Her adoptive mother treated her very well, but when the woman was dying, the family’s grandmother and adoptive father planned to sell Xiaocao to the Wang family. Her adoptive mother had once been a pitiful girl herself, with a fate much like Xiaocao’s. In her teens, after falling out with her family, she ran away from home, only to be abducted by human traffickers and married off in the mountains to her current adoptive father, Li Tietou.
When Xiaocao learned the truth, how could she bow to fate? In tears, she kowtowed to her mother, grabbed a woodcutter’s knife, and headed up the mountain, undeterred by the wild beasts said to roam its far reaches.
Though she often went up the mountain to gather pig fodder and pick wild fruit, no one had ever ventured deep into it. She soon lost her way and twisted her ankle.
The villagers’ shouts and footsteps drew closer and closer, throwing her into a panic. As she ran forward, she accidentally fell into a deep pit.
When she woke again, she saw a soft green glow floating all around a four-leaf clover. Still bleeding heavily, she promptly passed out once more.
