My Mom Is the Whole Hospital’s Top-Tier Star

In 1985, a small industrial city in the north was filled with the smell of coal dust and restless ambition.

In the cramped room of a workers' apartment block, Li Daqiang spread a mimeographed newspaper across his lap. Even its creased pages couldn't hide the bold black characters: “Ten-thousand-yuan household.”

His fingers traced the words, and his heart pounded in his chest.

Twenty-year-old Li Daqiang was a proud fitter at Hongxing Machinery Factory, with the iron rice bowl everyone envied.

But right now, that bowl felt like a shackle made of iron.

He slammed the newspaper onto the table, rattling the enamel teacup.

“Dad, Mom, I'm not going to work at the factory anymore,” he declared.

His mother, Zhou Guifen, was making shoe soles. Her hand shook, and the needle pricked her finger.

“Ow...”

She put her finger in her mouth and cursed through the pain.

“You little brat, what kind of nonsense are you talking?”

“You're just going to throw away your iron rice bowl? Has a donkey kicked you in the head?”

Li Daqiang's father, Li Jianguo, simply smoked his dry tobacco in silence. The smoke swirled so thickly it stung the eyes. At last, he tapped out his pipe with a heavy knock.

“I'm going to ‘make it big down south’ and become a ten-thousand-yuan household!”