On the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, there was heavy snow. Su Banxia was pushed down by her husband's palm, and blood stained the threshold.
Three months later, her three stepdaughters huddled behind her and timidly called "Mom."
The village bully came to look for trouble and fell into a smelly ditch when he went out. The ex-husband came to snatch the child, but the eldest daughter took out a book full of dates of beatings. The commune cadres were collectively silent.
Everyone thought she wouldn't survive that winter with three oil bottles.
Until the day the admission letter arrived - second in the county.
The ex-husband knelt in the snow and begged her to return his daughter to him.
She smiled: "When you gave me that push, why didn't you ask for it?"
