In 14 years of marriage, I learned three things:
Get up at five in the morning to cook,
Stretch every yuan until it splits in two,
And make peace with my husband’s underwear and socks.
I thought that was just how life was.
Until one day, in 38-degree heat, I visited three wet markets to save twenty cents,
Then came home to find him sprawled on the sofa, tipping a livestream host 5,200 yuan.
He said, “It’s my money. I can spend it however I want.”
I said, “Fine.”
He and his mother looked down on the jar of pickles I made by the stove more than anything.
Later, I opened a pickle shop at the entrance to the residential compound where they lived.
And later still, he knelt in front of me and said, “I was wrong.”
I said, “You weren’t wrong.”
“It’s just time for me to settle the accounts for these 14 years myself.”
At 36, divorced and raising two kids, with no education or connections,
I turned a bottle of dried radish she looked down on into the foundation I built for myself, rising from the mud of the wet market.
