The woman nestled in Er Geda's arms was called Li Jiaoman.
She was the only owner of a small grocery store in the village.
She had just gotten married to her man, Gao Feng, when she was only seventeen years old.
At that time, although Gao Feng's family ran a small shop, they were poor as dirt.
The reasons for this were twofold: on one hand, Gao Feng was lazy, and on the other, the villagers were poor and seldom came to buy anything.
It's no exaggeration to say that of the one hundred items on the shelves at the beginning of the year, more than thirty would probably still be left at the end of the year.
Initially, when the matchmaker made the introduction, Li Jiaoman heard that Gao Feng's family ran a small store and assumed they must be quite wealthy.
But after living with Gao Feng for a while, she found out that his family was actually worse off than a mere farmer.
What's more, Gao Feng didn't farm his fields properly, spending his days drinking and playing cards instead.
