Vein of Salt

"A family epic soaked in the salt of thirteen generations of women" Lin Shuying is the best settled woman in the Beijing investment banking circle. Her life was as precise as an Excel spreadsheet - until her father suddenly died next to the two-hundred-year-old well in her hometown, leaving her with thirteen salt merchant account books handed down from the third year of Xianfeng's reign. She originally planned to sign, take the money and leave, allowing the ancient town demolition project to proceed smoothly. But the strange knot symbols on the account books and the disappearing memory of an 82-year-old aunt dragged her into a secret passage that has been completely erased by history - the Women's Salt Transport Route. In the third year of Xianfeng's reign, the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom blocked Huai's salt supply and used Sichuan salt to help Chu. When the men were devoured by the war, a woman named Liu Sanniang led tens of thousands of nameless salt-carrying women and used their flesh and blood to create a salt-carrying lifeline across four provinces in the Bashan Shu River. They have no names, only salt numbers; no tombstones, only knots soaked in brine. One hundred and sixty years later, Lin Shuying must choose between the iron heel of capital and the roots of her family. And when she finally reached the bottom of the kilometer-deep well and touched Liu Sanniang's name carved on the well wall in the darkness, she understood the true meaning of her father's words before his death, "There is something wrong with the well" - The well is not wrong. The well has been waiting for someone to understand its voice. This is a novel about a woman forgotten by history, but also a novel about a woman rediscovering her roots. Those who have no name also have a road under their feet. Those knots soaked in brine weave a China that is more real than any official history. --- Where salt is, people are there. Purpose: To carve a monument for a woman who has no name in history. During the Xianfeng period, tens of thousands of women transporting salt used their bare feet to create a lifeline across four provinces, but this was completely erased from official history. What "Salt Vein" wants to do is to use an ancient account book and the knot codes of thirteen generations of women to pull them out of the folds of history, let them live once in the novel, and let those without names finally have a road named after them.