Born in the narrow gap between town and country in the 1980s, Lin Xiaocao had her household registration under her mother’s name and lived with other people’s prejudice from the moment she was born.
The family’s decline, her violent father, and her weak-willed mother cast a shadow over the childhood she could never escape;
isolation at school and two failed marriages became the treacherous abysses of her youth.
Like wild grass growing deep in an old alley, she fought to take root in barren soil. After enduring countless unbearable days and nights, she finally put down roots in the city in middle age and found a small home of her own.
But fate was cruel. The peace she had found so late shattered in an instant, and leukemia took away her last hope.
In the silence of her hospital room, the piece of fruit candy she had treasured for half her life became a reflection of her entire life: a brief sweetness followed by endless bitterness.
Looking back through a story told in reverse, this novel lays bare the hard and regret-filled life of a woman from society’s lowest rung.
