My brother and I grew up on our parents' dog food.
It is said that when my father won the first prize in the exam, he hid under the old locust tree at the entrance of the village and cried like a fool.
My mother passed by with a butcher's knife: "You're a coward. You don't dare to marry me after passing the exam?"
Later, the whole capital laughed at the chief minister's wife for being born in the middle class.
Until the border war broke out and food and grass were cut off, my mother entered the imperial study with a bone-chopping knife and said: "Lend me three thousand soldiers and horses, and the interest will be one hundred thousand Xiongnu sheep."
The emperor asked her why.
My father silently took out the tiger charm: "Because I am her husband-in-law, and because this tiger charm... I ate it from the buns she taught me to make last night."
