My older sister and I were both rare women born with bodies especially suited to bearing children. My sister married a poor farmer from our village and gave birth to five sons. With such a thriving family, they pulled themselves out of poverty and made a fortune. I married a well-off production team leader, but every child I bore was a girl. My husband was ashamed of me and beat my daughters and me to death. When I opened my eyes again, I had been reborn on the day the matchmaker came to arrange our marriages. I watched coldly as the production team leader, acting completely out of character, chose my older sister, whose legs were disabled. I realized he had been reborn too. He thought that marrying her would mean having sons every time, but he didn't know that he was the one with a genetic disorder and could never father a boy. I pointed to the quiet, slender, down-on-his-luck educated youth sitting in the corner and declared, “I want to marry him!”
