In the rural countryside of eastern Henan in 1980, the fates of three impoverished siblings were bound tightly together.
Their father had broken his leg and was bedridden. The family was so poor they could barely afford to eat, and the neighbors looked down on them and mocked them behind their backs.
But hardship could not break children who knew their responsibilities:
The eldest sister studied hard and came first in the county, determined to get into college and leave the mountains behind.
The younger brother, worried about the burden on his family, secretly gave up his place at the county’s top high school and resolutely enlisted, shouldering the family’s responsibilities.
The youngest sister was born clever, with a mole between her brows. Their mother painfully took apart her own dowry wedding dress just to sew bedding for her and pave the way for her education.
Their father declared with unwavering resolve: “I’ll sell everything we own if I have to. The three of you are going to get an education and make something of yourselves!”
From their humble mud-brick home to the futures they each forged, the three siblings supported one another through hard times. After enduring hardship, they turned their lives around against all odds and became the people everyone in the village envied.
