My parents named me Zhaodi just to attract a younger brother.
The year the eldest sister married into the Shen family, she bought two bushels of sorghum.
Shen Yaozu said that he would marry me when he returns from his studies. I waited year after year.
What was waiting was that the eldest sister was pregnant, but was falsely accused of being a bastard, and died of bleeding in the delivery bed.
What was waiting was Shen Yaozu's father, the half-buried old landowner. He carried me in through the back door on a small sedan.
On the wedding night, my groom was an old man with gray hair.
But my boy is far away in the provincial capital and knows nothing.
Later, I started a fire with my own hands.
Everyone said that Lin Zhaodi died in the fire.
Many years later, on the battlefield of the Northern Expedition, Captain Shen, who was covered in scars, clutched the hand of a nurse in the field hospital.
His eyes were red: "Zhao Di, you are still alive..."
He didn't know that my tears had already been burned dry in that fire.
