Su Mu opens his eyes in the 1960s as the posthumous son of a carpenter who works at a construction factory. His family is dirt poor, and he is treated like a hired hand. He doesn’t even have a proper room of his own. But he doesn’t panic. A trip to the black market in the middle of the night lets him trade white flour for sweet potatoes and fine grain for coarse grain, pocketing the difference as profit. He hauls flour at the grain station and eats baked flatbreads at the morning market, saving money and ration coupons by running little side businesses. Once he has enough, he’ll marry a down-to-earth woman and get his own room. That will make this life worthwhile.
