> During the 1942 famine in Henan, my mother sold me to a brothel for half a sack of sorghum.
> The madam pointed to a picture of the “Red Girls” on the wall. “Follow their example, and you can eat white flour buns too.”
> Ten years later, I escaped to Hong Kong and traded my dignity for cash beneath the neon lights.
> In the 1980s, I stormed back to Shenzhen and used money earned with my body to buy up an entire street.
> I speculated in stocks and real estate, opened nightclubs, and the newspapers called me the “Golden Touch.”
> Then came the day my bodyguard found heroin in my Mercedes.
> When the police broke down the door, I was slipping the last gold bar into my granddaughter’s silver bracelet.
> “Don’t be like Grandma.” The instant the handcuffs snapped shut, a pressed lily drifted out of the Bible.
> It was spring, in 1942, tucked into my collar by my mother.
