From the Bran Basket to the Rice Basket

Three years ago, the whole village laughed at Yao Yao as “a discarded old shoe.” Her ex-husband, Wu Dazhi, had gotten together with her childhood friend, her cousin Yao Lingling, who was three months younger, and gotten her pregnant. On the day of the divorce, Yao Lingling stood there with her seven-month baby bump, cuddling Wu Dazhi’s arm and smiling like a blooming white lotus. “Sis Yaoyao, don’t worry. Now that Brother Dazhi is with me, he’ll never have to live in poverty again.”

Yao Yao left with nothing and returned to her parents’ home. The village gossips had a field day. “Good grief, she couldn’t even keep her own cousin’s husband. That woman’s got terrible luck.” “I heard her mother-in-law called her a barren hen.” “That woman’s going to rot in a basket of chaff for the rest of her life.”

But they didn’t know that Yao Yao’s “basket of chaff” held the most valuable thing in town: the deed to a plot of land on the outskirts, slated for demolition. It was the dowry her father had given her when she married. She’d clutched it tightly during the divorce and hadn’t let them take a thing.

Three years later, Yao Yao was no longer anyone’s “old shoe.” She used the land as her startup capital, built greenhouses for succulents, and became the first “Succulent Beauty” in the surrounding villages to sell goods through livestreams. Her current husband, Li Xiaolong, is a tall, strapping former soldier from the neighboring village. He’s great at hard work, and no one in the county is more loving to his wife.

As for Wu Dazhi and Yao Lingling? That “true love” couple had two children in three years, both girls. Their mother-in-law curses Yao Lingling every day for having a “belly that only produces money-losing daughters.” Wu Dazhi contracted