In 1990, six girls from the mountains of Guizhou boarded a green train bound for Guangdong.
They carried a dream of changing their lives with just five yuan.
Tang Wanting, the prettiest of them, thought what awaited her was a factory assembly line and a monthly salary of one hundred yuan.
Instead, she first encountered a human trafficker's sack, the darkness of a cellar, a desperate escape from a pyramid scheme hideout, the bitter wind beneath a bridge, and the predatory hands of people at an upscale club.
Betrayal by her friends, regional discrimination, sweat on the assembly line, a tangled and melodramatic romance, and the crashing waves of a changing era... Like a weed, she fought to take root in Shenzhen's concrete jungle.
From toy factories, clothing factories, and hardware factories to street stalls, shops, and her own company.
From sleeping beneath a bridge to renting a room, and finally buying a mansion beside Shennan Avenue.
From a "country bumpkin from Guizhou" who got robbed to someone people respectfully call "President Tang."
She walked this road for twenty years. It was soaked in blood, tears, and sweat, yet the hardiest of flowers bloomed along the way.
This is an epic about a migrant worker, and a portrait of an era of displacement.
(This book is adapted from real experiences and covers major events of the era, including the 1990s migrant worker boom, human trafficking, pyramid schemes, SARS, the financial crisis, and the Wenchuan earthquake. The plot is wildly melodramatic and the emotions are intense. Readers who are easily distressed are advised to proceed with caution.)
