[Heartwarming at first, then melodramatic]
In 1993, fifteen-year-old Zhao Mansheng lost both her parents. Her uncles took all the compensation money from the driver responsible, claiming they would keep it safe for her, and then tried to marry her off.
She hid behind a door and listened in, then squeezed onto a freight truck and fled to Shenzhen, to the home of a cousin she had met only once, at a funeral. She begged for help.
Chen Lesheng had just quit her job at a state-owned factory to try her luck in business. She was scraping by on her savings just to pay the rent. How could she afford to raise a child in her teens?
In the damp, gloomy rental room, Zhao Mansheng expressionlessly chewed the last piece of fruit-flavored hard candy. It crackled between her teeth. Listening to it, she felt as if she were being crushed too, close to breaking apart.
After a long while, Chen Lesheng finally patted Zhao Mansheng, who had her head bowed, and said, “If I have a bite of meat, you’ll have a bowl of soup.”
Luckily, Chen Lesheng was resourceful enough to keep them from starving and even make a little money.
They no longer had to live in that squalid rental room. Gradually, they got pagers and cell phones, and at last they bought their first home, then a second, then a third...
But why did their happiness come to a halt?
-
In 2000, the century’s sunset descended over Shenzhen Bay.
Zhao Mansheng had just been promised a job by her interviewer. She sat on a roadside bench, her formal jacket draped loosely over its back.
She gazed silently at the clouds ablaze in the evening light, the water shimmering gold, and the towering buildings glowing in the sun.
The sunset was lovely, and life was looking up.
Only Chen Lesheng was no longer by her side.
She covered her face as tears slipped silently down.
