On the day Jiang Wan resigned from her marriage and went to Liujia Village, she only brought a basket of old books and a maid as a dowry. My mother-in-law curled her lips and said that a scholar would not be able to serve the fields, and that my husband was just a boring gourd hunter who was stuck in the mountains all day long. She didn't argue. As soon as the autumn rain stopped, she stepped on the mud to the private plot, pulled up weeds and raised vegetable seedlings. When the first frost-beaten cabbage came out of the pot in winter, and my mother-in-law drank three bowls of soup in a row, the person who had the say in the family quietly changed hands.
