I Break Free from My Cage

After retiring, Ms. Guan picked up her old volleyball dream again. Not even cancer could stop her.

When she was young and in junior high, Ms. Guan had already become a national second-tier volleyball athlete. But the three invisible hands of her era, her family, and fate pushed her down another path, cruelly robbing her of the right to chase her dream.

More than thirty years later, Ms. Guan retired and took up her dream again. She became one of the first national-level air volleyball referees, then led her team into the air volleyball finals at the National Games. But the heavens couldn’t stand to see her succeed and cruelly struck her once more, saddling her with cancer.

But Ms. Guan refused to give up. Stubborn and determined, she fought back. After enduring countless hardships, she finally won a volleyball championship thirty years later and made peace with her body, her family, and her own fate.