I Picked Up Six Girls in the Seventies and Became a Billionaire

In a northern village in the 1970s, the marriage of Li Xingyi, a lame worker at a brick kiln, and Ye Qianke, a stubborn young woman, is branded from the start as a union doomed to leave the family without an heir. A workplace injury has left Li permanently infertile. Amid the spit and scorn of a society that favors boys over girls, the young couple face life with unbending resolve.

Between 1978 and 1992, they take in six abandoned baby girls: Li Qiulin, found frozen purple in a haystack; Wang Luoke, left in a bamboo basket in exchange for rice; Pan Yuxin, clutching a moldy steamed bun in a ruined temple; Zhou Wenhong, left by a supply-and-marketing cooperative in exchange for ration coupons; Deng Huarong, put up for sale in a woodshed; and Yang Zi, who begs for a bite to eat on New Year's Eve.

When insults like “a family without an heir” and “a home for unwanted girls” rain down on them, Li Xingyi supports the roof with his lame leg, while Ye Qianke wields a shoulder pole to protect the girls. They eat coarse bran buns to send their daughters to school, wrap the six little bodies in patched quilts, cover their earthen walls with certificates of achievement, and trample gossip underfoot.

From a mud-brick house to a new apartment, from being chased and beaten to protecting their family, the six girls grow up amid prejudice to become pillars of strength. Years later, they are teachers, painters, accountants, dancers, principals, and scholars. Their lives prove that the roots of the Li family have been nourished by love more deeply than anyone else's.