Wan Ling, a shy, soft-hearted girl from the countryside who loves face very much, went out to work and met Long Qiang, an eloquent man. They fell in love in just three months and got married impulsively. After getting married, she was shocked to learn that her husband was divorced and she had a baby, and she was already pregnant. She had no choice but to give up on the marriage.
In the following ten years, Wan Ling gave birth to two sons and one daughter at home, silently taking care of the family's livelihood. The husband flaunts his hard work in starting a business, but never comes home all year long, and does not receive any living expenses. After the business failed miserably, his credit report turned black, and he ruthlessly coaxed his wife into using her identity as a legal practitioner, taking out loans and taking on debts. Not only that, Long Qiang cheated and betrayed her for a long time, and Wan Ling thought about her children and forgave her again and again.
Conflicts piled up, she was in debt, and there were constant quarrels. Long Qiang abused her and drove her away, telling her to go back to her parents' home. Wan Ling was left to bear all the principal and interest of the loan alone. Her parents advised her to abandon her children and get a divorce to protect herself. Wan Ling was reluctant to part with her family and children and insisted on clinging to her life. In the end, she was abandoned by her relatives, leaving her completely helpless.
Desperate, she worked multiple odd jobs a day to pay off her debts, and even relied on workers' compensation to survive. The girl who used to be extremely thin-skinned, sensitive, had low self-esteem, and was afraid of gossip has been polished by layers of hardships and hardened into a "thick-skinned" person. That is not shamelessness, but armor to survive in desperate situations.
After surviving the long darkness, Wan Ling paid off all her huge debts, divorced decisively, and lived alone with her three children. Life is poor and simple, but stable and comfortable. She finally let go of the pain of the past, untied the knots in her heart for many years, regained her smile and hope, and finally understood:
What the world calls thick-skinned is never nature, it is forced by life.
