The Girl Abandoned in the Blizzard That Year

Winter, 1977. Heavy snow sealed off the mountains. Lin Qingqiu, a young educated woman sent to the countryside, gave birth to a daughter in the cattle shed while hoping for a chance to return to the city. Thinking the baby would hold her back, she coldly abandoned her in Wolf Fang Ravine deep in the mountains.

“If I take you with me, I’ll never make it back to the capital. Maybe you’ll have better luck in your next life.”

To cover her tracks, she stole a dead newborn from a peasant woman in the same village and passed the baby off as her own, making it look like an accident. Then she went off to live the life of a wealthy capital-city wife.

The abandoned baby became “Bai Xue,” raised in the arms of Huo Qingshan, a lonely, retired soldier.

She grew up on meals donated by the villagers, dressed in rags, and thrived like a weed in the wind-lashed, snowbound logging camp.

Then her adoptive father died in an accident.

Everyone called Lin Zhixia a bastard who had brought about her adoptive father’s death, saying she deserved to spend the rest of her life chewing tree bark in the logging camp.

But she refused to accept her fate! She hauled logs by day to pay for school and pored over books by the light of a broken stove at night.

Fifteen years later, a rising business star and top scholar stood before the capital’s exclusive compound for senior officials.

The wealthy wife, Lin Qingqiu, looked down her nose at her. “What are you doing here? I don’t have a daughter who reeks of the countryside!”