On the morning of her wedding, Shen Qinghe opens her eyes and returns to 1985.
Before the veil is even lifted, she has figured out two things: first, she can't go through with this marriage; second, bell-bottoms are about to take off in the fall.
In her previous life, she spent thirty years sewing for the Zhou family for free. Her master stole her embroidery patterns, and she eventually died in a hospital corridor, without even getting a signboard of her own.
This time, she lifts her veil right there and walks out of the Zhou family's front door, carrying off the sewing machine from her dowry.
The whole of Qinghe County says she's crazy: Why turn down a perfectly good marriage to a cadre's son and try to make a living with a "money-eating machine"?
Shen Qinghe doesn't argue. She just keeps the books
Mending a pair of trousers: 20 cents. Making a Dacron shirt: 1.8 yuan. First week's sales: 46 yuan.
Her rules are simple:
- When troublemakers show up, settle the accounts first, then break with them;
- Stand on your skills, and account for every penny;
- Rely on no one. Be your own boss.
From setting up a stall by the roadside to opening the county's first tailor shop, from going to Guangzhou to snap up fabric scraps to starting a factory and taking foreign trade orders
While everyone else is still debating whether women should do business, she has already stitched the next decade's opportunities into her ledger, one piece at a time.
