Lin Meng spent three years as a canary in a gilded cage. Her husband, Wu Jinyi, controlled everything about her, from her breathing to her thoughts. After she became pregnant, he deemed her a “useless woman unworthy of bearing his child.”
When her baby nearly died, she finally came to her senses. She escaped her prison with no money to her name and hid in a dilapidated rental in the north of the city. She struggled with pregnancy symptoms and scraped by with part-time work, while her ex-husband's threats followed her like a shadow. She thought she had reached the end of the road.
Then, one rainy night at a convenience store, a stranger handed her some change and said, “Keep the rest.” Then he appeared again, this time as Huang Ming, a mysterious investor in the company she worked for.
He gave her a job and a place to live, silently supporting her when she was close to breaking down. But just as she thought she had found hope, he coolly revealed how completely he could control her. He offered her a ladder, but cast a shadow over her, too.
Lin Meng struggled to survive in the narrow space between them, with her hungry daughter, Xingxing, on her left and the paintbrush she was trying to pick up again in her right hand. On one side was the threat from her past, clinging to her like a bone-deep parasite. On the other were Huang Ming's deep, unreadable eyes, always there to catch her before she fell.
This is a story of escape and rebirth. It is the roar of the weak fighting fate, and of a woman who, on the edge of a precipice, grows armor and fangs on her own before finally confronting both her destiny and the hands secretly controlling everything.
Does the road ahead lead to the light, or to an even deeper web? She has nowhere left to retreat. All she can do is fight her way forward.
