The Troubled Family: Dawn

After graduating from high school, Luo Yuefeng failed to get into a technical college or university and stayed home to farm. This was during the Reform and Opening-Up period, when Shenzhen was designated a special economic zone. Luo Yuefeng longed to make his fortune there, but fate refused to let him fly far from home. His mother, who was over sixty, suddenly suffered a spike in blood pressure that left her partially paralyzed. Although Luo Yuefeng had several siblings, his two older brothers were married and working away from home, with no time to care for their mother. His sister was married, and his younger brother was still in school. The heavy responsibility of looking after their mother fell to Luo Yuefeng.

Before he knew it, Luo Yuefeng had spent more than three years caring for her. Now in his mid-to-late twenties, he had plenty of kind matchmakers trying to find him a wife. But whenever a young woman heard that Ah Feng had a bedridden, paralyzed mother, she would politely decline.

At last, someone introduced him to Lin Lingxiang, a young woman from a neighboring village. She saw that Ah Feng was honest and hardworking, and skilled at masonry. She didn’t mind that his mother was bedridden. Everyone grows old and gets sick; no one can stay healthy forever.

And so Lin Lingxiang and Luo Yuefeng became lifelong partners, embarking together on a life of joys, sorrows, and hardships.