Winter, 1986. A small village in northern China.
Lin Wanqiu knew she was going to die tonight.
It wasn’t a premonition. She was certain of it.
Outside the window, the man she had been forced to marry, Zhang Tiezhu, was dousing the woodshed with kerosene.
The kerosene splashed against the walls, unnaturally loud in the still night. Between splashes, he hummed a tuneless little song.
“Burn… burn it all clean… Wife won’t run away…”
Through a crack in the broken window frame, Lin Wanqiu could see a childlike smile spreading across his bloated face.
Anyone who saw that smile might have mistaken it for innocence.
But she knew just how much cruelty lay behind it.
A rusty iron chain bound her wrist to the head of the bed, its other end buried deep in the mud wall. It was the handiwork of her mother-in-law, Old Madam Sun.
Ever since Lin Wanqiu had been caught trying to escape, this miserable room, originally converted from a pigsty, had become her prison.
“You shameless little wretch! You married into the Zhang family, and you still think you can run away?”
Old Madam Sun had practically spat in her face as she screamed.
“I’ll keep you chained up until you give me a grandson!”
The battered wooden door swung open, letting in a gust of bitterly cold wind.
Old Madam Sun stepped inside carrying a chipped bowl. It contained half a serving of watery rice porridge, so thin she could practically see her reflection in it, with a few rotten vegetable leaves floating on the surface.
“Eat!”
She dropped the bowl onto the floor and looked Lin Wanqiu up and down with her cloudy eyes.
“And don’t even think about starving yourself. If you die, I’ll drag your corpse back to the Lin family and demand compensation! They took five hundred yuan from me as a bride price!”
Five hundred yuan.
Lin Wanqiu’s lips twitched.
She wanted to laugh, but the movement tugged painfully at the fresh cut on her cheek.
Zhang Tiezhu had beaten her with a fire poker during one of his violent episodes yesterday.
Her gaze drifted past Old Madam Sun toward the snow falling outside.
If there really were gods in this world…
If she could truly live her life again…
She would never again be the obedient daughter, the devoted wife, or the eldest sister who endured every hardship without complaint.
Those people had drained her dry, taken everything she had, and finally pushed her into hell.
If she ever got another chance, she would make every last one of them pay.
Blood for blood.
“What are you staring at?”
Enraged by the look in her eyes, Old Madam Sun stepped forward and viciously pinched her arm.
“You bring nothing but bad luck! Ever since you married into this family, nothing has gone right! Tiezhu’s fits have gotten worse, and even the chickens have stopped laying eggs!”
Lin Wanqiu let the old woman pinch her without making a sound.
It wasn’t that she couldn’t feel the pain.
She had simply endured far worse.
Her thoughts drifted back to the first half of her miserable life.
She had grown up in the Lin household, where sons were treasured and daughters were treated as burdens.
As the eldest daughter, she had been working for as long as she could remember.
At six, she cooked meals. At eight, she washed clothes. At ten, she was already working in the fields.
When she turned sixteen, she saved the daughter of the textile factory’s deputy director. Out of gratitude, she was given the opportunity to take the factory’s recruitment examination.
She passed the factory recruitment exam and worked as a temporary employee for four years, earning Outstanding Worker honors each year before finally securing a permanent factory position.
Yet she never kept a single paycheck.
Every yuan went straight into her parents’ hands.
“You’re the eldest sister,” they always told her. “You have to help support the family.”
And she believed them.
Her younger sister, Lin Zhaodi, would smile sweetly and say, “You’re the best sister anyone could ask for.”
She believed that, too.
Meanwhile, her younger brother, Lin Baogen, enjoyed everything she worked so hard to provide without ever offering so much as a thank-you.
And somehow, she had convinced herself that this was simply how things were supposed to be.
At twenty, she married Chen Zhigang through an introduction arranged by acquaintances.
He was well-mannered, educated, and soft-spoken.
She thought she had finally found a good man.
But on their wedding night, when Chen Zhigang learned that she had surrendered her factory position to her younger brother, his expression changed instantly.
“You don’t have a job anymore? Then what was the point of marrying you?!”
His words left her feeling as though she had fallen into an icy abyss.
But moments later, he wrapped his arms around her and apologized, claiming he had only spoken out of anger.
And like a fool, she believed him again.
For the next five years, she devoted herself to caring for his bedridden mother.
She emptied bedpans, cleaned the old woman’s body, fed her meals, and attended to her every need.
Before her death, the old woman had held Lin Wanqiu’s hand and whispered, “Wanqiu, you’re such a good girl…”
Yet when it came time to distribute her belongings, she gave the precious gold bracelet she had kept hidden away for years to her biological daughter, Chen Xiaomei.
Later, when the national college entrance examination was reinstated, Chen Zhigang passed and earned a place at university.
To pay his tuition, they sold the only valuable possession in their home, a sewing machine.
“Once I graduate and get assigned a good job, I’ll bring you and Xiaomei to the city,” he promised.
She believed him.
While he studied, she worked three jobs to support Chen Xiaomei, who was still attending school.
She endured the exhaustion, the hunger, and the loneliness, holding on to the future he had promised her.
Then her mother-in-law passed away.
Lin Wanqiu took Chen Xiaomei to the provincial capital to find her husband.
What she discovered shattered her world.
Chen Zhigang was living happily with another woman and a child.
The three of them looked like a perfect little family.
The woman wore an elegant wool coat, the kind Lin Wanqiu had only ever admired in department-store windows. Her hair was styled in fashionable curls, and she carried herself with the easy confidence of someone who had never known hardship.
Beside Lin Wanqiu, Chen Xiaomei lowered her head.
“Sister-in-law…” she murmured. “My brother got married six months ago. She’s Director Liu’s daughter.”
So even his younger sister had known.
Everyone had known.
Everyone except her.
She had been the only one kept in the dark.
Unable to accept it, Lin Wanqiu stormed into Chen Zhigang’s workplace and demanded an explanation.
But instead of showing even a trace of shame, he turned the accusation against her.
In front of everyone, he threw his marriage certificate in her face.
“Comrade Lin Wanqiu, take a good look! I’m already married. Lina is my lawful wife!”
He spoke loudly enough for the entire office to hear.
“I know you have feelings for me, but I already have someone I love. Please stop pestering me. We’re simply not suited for each other. If you keep harassing me, my wife will get the wrong idea!”
The onlookers began whispering and pointing at her.
They looked at Lin Wanqiu as though she were a deranged woman who couldn’t accept being rejected.
Her face burned with humiliation.
In the end, she returned to her parents’ home, defeated and utterly exhausted.
At the entrance to the village stood a magnificent five-room brick house with a tiled roof.
It had been built with the wages she had handed over for years, along with the bride price from her marriage.
Every brick represented her hard work.
Yet the moment she arrived, her mother, Wang Guihua, who was sitting by the doorway cracking sunflower seeds, greeted her with a dark expression.
“You’ve still got the nerve to come back? What happened? Did your man throw you out?”
Lin Wanqiu told her parents everything.
She explained how Chen Zhigang had abandoned her and married another woman.
Her father, Lin Daqiang, sat smoking his pipe without even lifting his eyes.
“Then hurry up and find another man to marry. Don’t come back here expecting us to feed you for nothing.”
Just then, Lin Baogen emerged from the house with his newlywed wife tucked against his side.
His wife was wearing a familiar red sweater.
It was the only red sweater Lin Wanqiu had owned when she got married.
“By the way, Sis,” Lin Baogen said casually, “you gave me that factory job back then. Don’t even think about asking for it back.”
Lin Wanqiu stood there in stunned silence.
Then, all at once, she found the whole situation absurd.
She had spent her entire life sacrificing herself for these people.
And this was what she had received in return.
That evening, Lin Zhaodi came into her room carrying a bowl of water.
“Sis, please don’t blame Mom and Dad. They’re having a hard time, too. You know how people in the village love to gossip…”
She took Lin Wanqiu’s hand and gently offered her the water.
“Don’t worry, Sis. I’ll talk to them. I’ll make sure they let you stay.”
Her voice was so tender, so full of concern.
For one brief moment, Lin Wanqiu thought that perhaps there was still someone in this family who genuinely cared about her.
She drank the water.
When she woke the next morning, her entire body was weak and limp.
She could barely move.
Standing inside the room was Zhang Tiezhu, grinning foolishly at her.
Outside the door, she heard Old Madam Sun bargaining with her parents.
“Another fifty yuan! Look at my daughter! You won’t find another girl this pretty in the whole village!”
“Four hundred and fifty is plenty. She might be pretty, but she’s already been married once. She’s not worth that much anymore.”
“And your son’s a fool! Five hundred yuan, not a penny less!”
Only then did Lin Wanqiu understand.
Her own sister had drugged the water.
Her parents had sold her.
For five hundred yuan, they had handed her over to a family that treated her like livestock.
Everything that followed became a nightmare from which she could never wake.
She was forced to marry Zhang Tiezhu.
She was locked inside a filthy room.
And day after day, she endured humiliation, beatings, and torment.
“Hey! What are you daydreaming about?”
Old Madam Sun’s shrill voice dragged her back to the present.
A slap came flying toward her face.
Lin Wanqiu instinctively turned her head, but the old woman’s fingernails still scraped across her cheek, leaving a burning sting.
“I’m warning you!”
Old Madam Sun leaned closer, revealing a mouthful of yellowed teeth. Her foul breath washed over Lin Wanqiu’s face.
“If you dare resist again tonight, and Tiezhu still can’t get you pregnant, I’ll go straight to the Lin family tomorrow and make a scene!”
Her voice grew louder and more vicious.
“I’ll let the whole village know you’re a barren hen who can’t lay eggs! A used-up woman nobody wants!”
Lin Wanqiu slowly raised her head.
Her expression was so calm that it was almost frightening.
“Go ahead.”
Old Madam Sun froze.
“What did you say?”
“I said, go ahead.”
A faint smile slowly appeared on Lin Wanqiu’s battered face.
“Go and tell the whole village exactly what kind of rotten, heartless family you are.”
She stared straight into the old woman’s eyes.
“Tell them your son is a violent brute. Tell them you’ve imprisoned your daughter-in-law, beaten her, and treated her worse than an animal.”
Her voice remained steady.
“What you’re doing is against the law.”
The smile on her lips grew colder.
“And listen carefully. I’d rather die than let that beast of a son of yours lay another finger on me!”
She paused, letting every word sink in.
“You still dream of having a grandson?”
“Keep dreaming!”