The Hardships of Three Rural Sisters

In 1972, my mother died after giving birth to three daughters.

That night, Dad went to the pond to fish and never came back.

The three of us grew up with Grandma in a leaky woodshed, learning to weave, identify medicinal herbs, and read the weather. When we turned eighteen, Grandma couldn't survive that winter.

Before she died, she left us only half a basket of seeds. "These are the roots I'm leaving to you three. Plant them well, and you'll have a good life."

The three of us sisters took the seeds and started planting in wasteland. We brewed soybean paste and sold mountain goods, and somehow managed to turn our half-collapsed woodshed into the commune's most famous ten-thousand-yuan household...