No More Being a Doormat: The Wild Orphan Makes Money in the 1980s

Lin Zhiqiu, who grew up eating at the tables of many families, thought marriage would give her a home. Instead, she became her in-laws' unpaid money-making machine.

During a raging fever, she dreamed that countless sewing threads were tightening around her neck, while her in-laws lay on top of her with their mouths wide open, sucking her flesh and blood.

She jolted awake, cold sweat soaking the sheets beneath her palms.

To hell with love, and to hell with being a virtuous wife and mother!

The hands that hold scissors can do more than cut beautiful clothes. They can cut off every rotten romance, too.

In the 1980s, the winds of spring blew across the land. She headed south with scissors and a measuring tape to trade in clothes. She treated men as business partners, stepping stones, and competitors, but never again as people she had to save.

A few years later, every major department store had a women's clothing counter bearing the name Lin Zhiqiu.