Mountain City, River City: After Daybreak

“Wait for me a year.” That was the promise her first love made to her. A year later, he married someone else.

“You’re not your father’s biological daughter.” Those were the words her husband hurled at her when he dropped the pretense. He used that secret to blackmail her father for five whole years.

Divorced, left with nothing, raising a child alone, and with her ex-husband’s pregnant mistress showing up at her door... Everyone thought Lin Xiao’s life was over.

But she refused to give in.

She started over from scratch with her son, using the old house her father left behind and the compensation paid to her biological father, a martyr, to open a kindergarten.

Twenty years later, her ex-husband is bankrupt and down on his luck, while the other woman is behind bars. Standing in her own kindergarten, watching children race around the yard and listening to the song “If I Could Go Back to the Past,” she finally smiles through her tears.

It turns out none of the steps in life were wasted.

The people she loved unwisely, the tears she shed, and the wounds she endured all gave her a reason to become a light.

This is the story of a woman who spent half her life learning to make peace with herself.

When day broke, she became her own sun.