In the bitter winter of the far northwest, Maisui was born in a dilapidated earthen cave where water froze as it dripped.
Because she was a girl, her clan considered her a useless burden from the moment she came into the world.
She had no miraculous cheat, no godlike power to defy fate and change her destiny.
She could only rely on the tenacity forced into her in the womb, struggling desperately at the edge of life and death.
She endured coarse grains and fought through the cold and illness, stifling her cries and yielding in silence under people's scornful gazes.
Like a miserable wild weed rooted in a crevice on a cliff, she clung stubbornly to life despite the bitter wind trampling her down.
Amid the mire of being passed from hand to hand and harshly criticized, she quietly gathered the strength to stand against every hardship.
The prejudice of patriarchal clan rule could not crush her, and years of poverty and confinement could not wear her down.
Though born lowly and beset by hardship, she swore to grit her teeth and fight for a way to live!
