Chen Tiesheng, the Rebar Worker

At thirty-six, I left the construction site and entered a machine shop.

Sixteen years ago, I drove the first reinforcing bar of my life into the ground. My fingers blistered, my shoulders peeled in the sun, and my skin grew calluses. Amid the smell of concrete and rust, I learned how to keep life going. Later, I supported a family and personally said goodbye to the person who mattered most.

Life was like a cold-work die that never stopped, bending, stretching, and tempering me again and again.

I thought I would break. But I didn't.

This is the true story of a piece of rebar saving itself. There is no comeback, only survival.