This is a tragic documentary novel rooted in the rural reality of China in the 1960s. It takes the fate of the Li family, an ordinary farmer, as the main line. It truly restores the life of the lower class, where poverty, cowardice, viciousness and suffering were intertwined during the famine years. It also writes about the inevitable fate and scars of rural families in the old era.
The story begins in 1950. Li Binghu married Zhang Sui'e. Because they were unable to have children, they adopted their son Li Tie. In the 1960s when food and clothing were scarce, Zhang Sui'e, who was cruel and vicious by nature, vented all her grievances in life on her adopted son. Li Tie grew up hungry and beaten. His biological father, Li Binghu, was cowardly and numb, and never dared to protect him. This made the family shrouded in violence and coldness from the beginning.
As an adult, Li Tie secretly fell in love with Wang Feng, a meek and hardworking girl from the same village. In order to raise the betrothal gift, Li Binghu secretly went to the brick factory to work hard, and even borrowed loan sharks to barely consummate the marriage. But when Wang Feng married into the Li family, she did not enter a new life, but entered an endless purgatory.
Her mother-in-law, Zhang Sui'e, beat her in every possible way and made things difficult for her. The first-born daughter died in childbirth due to the umbilical cord being wrapped around her neck, and Wang Feng nearly died from a massive hemorrhage. When her mother's family came to seek justice, she accidentally discovered her father-in-law's secret about borrowing money at usury, and the conflict in the family completely broke out. While their mother came to take care of her confinement, Wang Feng and Li Tie could only secretly hug each other for warmth late at night, relying on each other in despair. Less than a month after the child died, Wang Feng became pregnant again. The new life came quietly with deeper fear and suffering.
Purpose: Through the tragic experiences of poor peasant families, this work accuses ignorance and cruelty of the destruction of human nature, sympathizes with the suffering fate of women at the bottom, and reflects on how poverty and cowardice devour family and warmth.