In the dog days of 1980, when the sun was so poisonous that it could crack the ground, Su Wanxing was woken up by a slap with rough calluses. The force was so heavy that her eyesight went black, her left cheek instantly swelled, hot pain traveled along the nerves towards Tianling Gai, and blood even oozed from the corner of her mouth.
"You money loser! The Zhou family's thirty yuan gift has been put into your brother's gift book. How dare you hide on the kang and pretend to be dead?" The sharp curse was like a poisoned needle, making the eardrums buzz. Su Wanxing struggled to open her eyes. In her blurry vision, her stepmother Liu Cuihua was standing by the earthen kang with her arms akimbo. The three-layered gray cloth gown was stained with the black ash from the stove. There was still half a piece of unwiped corn paste hanging on the collar. The strands of hair at the temples were stuck to her shiny face with sweat.
