The Unlucky Pig Girl

[No contrived plot twists + not a power fantasy + no cheats + traditional + period setting + realism + hardship + resistance] The hemp rope always snaps at its thinnest point, and misfortune always seeks out those already suffering. Harder than any TV drama, more outrageous than any novel: this is reality. The loess plateau, carved by a century of harsh winds, shaped her into the most lowly of creatures. The sour stench of the pigsty seeped into Hongli’s very bones; yellow earth that would never wash clean was packed beneath her fingernails, and even in her dreams she heard flies buzzing beside the latrine. She was a weed growing beside a manure heap, yet she insisted on breaking free from this cursed soil. When the oil lamp burned out, she refilled it and carried on. She chewed up her textbooks and swallowed them, believing that knowledge could boil her blood and evaporate the filth she had been born into. Marriage was another airtight cave dwelling. Her mother-in-law’s gaze was a stick poking into the cave, always prodding her most tender wounds. “A wretched thing raised in a pigsty.” The broth she was given during her confinement was so thin she could see her haggard face in it. Her mother came all the way over the mountains carrying a clay pot, yellow earth from beneath her fingernails falling onto the gleaming tiles like drops of blood. The chicken soup, warmed with dignity, was dumped bone and all, grease included, into a stainless-steel dog bowl. The clang woke the sleeping baby.