Pig Sister-In-Law

This book tells the story of Guizhi, a rural woman in Yuncheng, Shanxi, who managed a pig farm by herself after her husband Lao Lin died of illness. When Lao Lin was alive, Guizhi was just the woman behind him. After Lao Lin left, she was forced to become the owner of a pig farm from a housewife who only knew how to cook and take care of children. What she faced was: the debt left by her husband, the doubts of the villagers, the rejection of her colleagues, a sudden swine fever, a pig pen collapse, a cold wave that had not happened in ten years, and the complicated situation of her daughter Guilan returning home two years later with pregnancy. Guizhi did not retreat. She took the old worker Zhao Si, the accountant Liu Xiulan, and her grandson Xiaohu, who was growing up, to raise pig after pig and calculate account after account. She adheres to the bottom line of "don't sell it if you are sick, and the scale will not hurt others". She would rather suffer a loss herself than cheat the members. After her daughter Guilan returned to her hometown, she used the accounting knowledge and cooperative concepts she learned to help the pig farm grow from 350 pigs to 2,000 pigs, and united 15 households of villagers to become rich together. There are no earth-shattering events in the book, only the smell of pig manure, feed, heaters in the cold winter, flashlights patrolling the pens late at night, pairs of hands digging into the earth after the landslide, and thirty piglets carried into the office during the cold wave. Guizhi's character is hidden in these daily details - tenacity, integrity, responsibility, generosity, and the simplest protection of "home" by a rural woman. The book has ten chapters, about 20,000 words, and uses plain and restrained writing to thoroughly describe the perseverance and growth of an ordinary person in the changing times.