In 1990, she married a civil servant without a wedding or bride price, only to catch him in bed with another woman. After paying off the 200,000 yuan he owed, she headed south to Guangzhou and fought her way from an assembly-line worker to a business owner. The day she left with nothing, all she took was a woven plastic sack. Years later, when her ex-husband kneels and begs her to take him back, she smiles. “We ended a long time ago.” But the child she raised with all her love eventually treated her like a stranger. Kindness given to the right person is a blessing; given to the wrong one, she’ll make them pay with interest. In the end, though, her heart softened.
