Autumn, 1990. Liu Hongmei is thirty-two years old. She has been married into the Zhou family for twelve years and has given birth to two daughters.
In this household, daughters are "money-losing burdens," and Liu is "the one who brought an end to the family line." Her mother-in-law beats and berates the children every day, keeps them from eating and going to school, and gives every good thing to the eldest brother-in-law's grandson. Her husband is a mama's boy who does whatever his mother says. When their daughters are beaten, he pretends not to hear from the next room.
She has endured it for twelve years.
Then her mother-in-law nearly kills their younger daughter by forcing her to drink a folk remedy. For the first time, Liu pours the poisonous dregs into her father-in-law's teapot. Everyone says she has become vicious. She says, "In this house, my daughters aren't treated like people. But to me, they are. If I don't take them away, they won't live to grow up."
In the autumn of 1991, she walks out of the Zhou family's gate with her two daughters. She takes nothing with her except the girls everyone called "money-losing burdens."
The cooking stove is still there. She doesn't look back.
