Lin Xiaoxi, 23 years old, from a small third-tier county town. She graduated from an ordinary university, with zero savings, zero job prospects, and zero future.
Then she won 10 million yuan.
When the 8 million yuan she got after taxes hit her account, she didn't take off, get carried away, or buy a designer bag, a car, or a house.
The first thing she did was buy a train ticket to Dali.
The second was to buy a courtyard by Erhai Lake and open a guesthouse with just four rooms. The third was to bring her parents, who had struggled their whole lives in their hometown, over to enjoy their retirement.
Other people spend their winnings. She used hers to retire.
But retirement wasn't so simple:
Relatives came in groups to "borrow money," former coworkers suddenly became her "best friends," and even the village aunties started asking where she got her money.
She thought she could keep the secret hidden for the rest of her life.
But the more you try to hide a secret, the harder it is to keep under wraps.
Until one day, someone asked her: If you hadn't won those 8 million yuan, would you still have dared to live this way?
She thought about it for a long time, then smiled. Whether she would have dared or not, she'd already done it.
This is a story about lying flat.
It's also a story about standing back up.
