Ji Ran was born into a famine-stricken year. Her father died when she was three, and at five her maternal grandfather threw her into the sea.
The whole village called her a jinx. When her mother remarried, she didn’t even look back.
Ji Ran didn’t cry.
Because a voice in her head told her: The sea obeys you.
While other children picked up seashells on the beach, she crouched on the rocks and tamed dolphins.
When other families had no food to eat, she led the whole village up the mountain: a tsunami was coming.
People asked, “What can a six-year-old girl possibly do?”
Later, she built an island and supported an entire village. The Northern Sea navy survived the winter on her salt. For hundreds of miles along the coast, people called her “Little Boss.” Pirates steered clear when they saw her ships, and imperial commendations piled up in her wooden box.
People asked what she wanted.
She said, “I don’t want anything. I just want to survive, and to help the people who follow me survive too.”
But as she kept planting, the island became a city, and the city became a nation.
No one could have imagined that the little girl thrown into the sea would one day truly rule an entire realm.
A shorter version, for a cover or bookshelf display:
When Ji Ran was six, her maternal grandfather threw her into the sea. The whole village expected her to die, and her mother remarried without looking back. But Ji Ran came back from the sea, bringing an island and a fleet of ships…
