The day Lin Shufen received the layoff notice from the National Cotton Factory, the sky was gray. Aunt Zhang next door was crying and talking about how she would survive after her iron rice bowl was shattered. She didn't cry, she just went home silently, looking at her son and daughter waiting for dinner, and her husband who could do nothing but sigh, and her heart was heavier than the oldest machine in the factory. It's ironic that after working hard all my life, I ended up becoming an "unemployed female worker". Bad news: The family's savings are at the bottom, they have no money for their children's schooling, and their husband's workplace is in shaky shape. Good news: She still has a unique skill in braised food passed down from her grandmother. The bad news among the bad news: When she wanted to set up a stall, the street office chased her every day, and the neighbors poked her in the back, saying it was embarrassing for a regular worker to do "speculative" work! Lin Shufen tied up her apron and stared: "Shameful? It's shameful to starve to death!" So, in the early 1990s, there was a stall selling fragrant braised food in Tongzilou. From being looked down upon at the beginning, to the long queues of old colleagues from the National Cotton Factory to buy it; from the quarrel between husband and wife at the beginning, to her husband clumsily helping her string beans and keep her account book; from a laid-off female worker who was pitied, to the famous "Braised Xishi", to contracting canteens, opening food processing plants, and re-employing a group of laid-off sisters... The factory director at that time was passing by in Santana, and his eyes widened when he saw Lin Shufen's impressive "Shufen Food" sign. But Lin Shufen just wiped her hands and said to her daughter beside her: "Remember, people cannot be abandoned by the times. As long as the skills are there and the spirit is there, you can work again at any time!"
