For three generations, the He family is swept along by hunger and the tides of the times. The male lead, He Cangsheng, longs for a son to carry on the family line, but has six daughters in a row and is mocked as a man whose family line will die out. His wife, Liu Meixi, suffers repeated miscarriages in her efforts to produce an heir, leaving her physically and emotionally exhausted. When He Cangsheng disappears in an accident while away on a business trip, the He family enters an “era of women.”
The eldest daughter, He Yalin, is as stubborn as a weed. She goes from trading blows with her sworn enemy, Tang Youjin of the Tang family, to secretly falling for him... Later, she happens to meet Chang Jiange... During the “Prepare for War, Prepare for Famine” campaign, He Yalin joins the digging of air-raid shelters and becomes embroiled in the feud between the two families. The six sisters, each with a distinct personality, are constantly at odds under the pressure of daily necessities and the petty burdens of everyday life. Their grandmother makes them recite the “Poem of Seven Steps” over and over, hoping to heal the rifts in their family.
From the Great Leap Forward to Reform and Opening Up, from the wave of layoffs to the rush into business, the women of the He family weather the ups and downs of a changing age. With grit and boldness, they face their fate and write their own stories of struggle and redemption.
The author's work is very well written