After recovering from her illness, Shumei wanted to seize the time to go to the factory to earn some money to support her life, as her family was really broke.

But she never expected that as soon as she entered the factory gate, the guard would tell her, "Big sister! The factory director asked you to go to his office to get your salary?"

Paying wages? Shumei was full of doubts. She frowned and looked at the guard with questioning eyes, then walked towards the factory director's office with heavy steps.

When she arrived at the door of the factory director's office, she pushed it open without any hesitation. Although she was angry, she could not think of any way to make amends.

When the factory manager saw her come in, he slammed the money he had prepared on the table and said, "Take the money and get out. Don't let me see you again."

The factory manager originally wanted to explain the reason for firing her, but seeing Shumei's angry expression, he got angry. "I'm the boss. I can fire anyone I want. There's no point in arguing with them."

Shumei walked to the table, counted the money twice, and then put it in her coat pocket. She walked around the table and headed towards the factory director's seat.

The factory director knew very well what kind of person Shumei was. Seeing Shumei approaching him, he stood up from his chair in panic and leaned back involuntarily.

"What do you want to do?"

Shumei didn't say anything, but raised her hand and slapped the factory director hard. Because it happened so suddenly, the factory director didn't have time to react, and Shumei's slap was accurate and powerful. The factory director was almost knocked to the ground by her, but fortunately the table stopped him from falling awkwardly.

After regaining his footing, the factory director raised his right hand, intending to strike back. Seeing this, Shumei didn't dodge, but instead turned her face sideways to meet him, signaling him to strike quickly.

Seeing Shumei like this, the factory director retreated and put down his raised hand.

"Bah! Villain!"

Shumei spat on the ground, squeezed out the word "villain" from her mouth, and walked out of the factory director's office.

Where is the road? The road is right under our feet. For Shumei, just as things were starting to get better, she fell back into the abyss. The future was bleak, and she once again lost her way.

Despite her life being like this, her parents still took advantage of her labor. After finishing her own farm work, she would rush back to her parents' home to help. Even without work, she still slept later than a dog and woke earlier than a chicken, spending every day facing the earth and back to the sky.

After finishing the last harvest season of the year, the New Year was approaching and Shumei had completely free time.

Shumei made sweet potatoes fresh from the fields and corn from the pigs into sweet potato soup and cornbread, which barely filled her stomach. But she knew this wasn't a long-term solution. With the meager harvest, she couldn't afford to live comfortably.

In fact, she was the only one who went hungry every day. The old couple Wu Ju and Zhang Binglin had hidden a lot of food and money. When she was out, they would secretly cook for them. Anyway, they would not starve themselves.

Tang Boyi still did his best to help Shumei as before. He would find excuses to help with the work in the fields and the house.

But no matter how much help he gives, no matter how hard Boyi tries, it is difficult for him to support two families by himself!

In order to make a living, Shumei once again embarked on the journey of looking for a job.

There wasn't much work to do in the village, so she went to town. There was plenty of manual labor, but most didn't want women. After days of searching, she still couldn't find a satisfactory job.

One day, after being turned away again, Shumei sat under an old banyan tree in the town and worried. After a day of running around, Shumei's legs were already sore from exhaustion, and she hadn't eaten anything all day, so she was starving.

She took out a tortilla she had brought with her when she left the house that morning. It was already cold and hard, but to her, it was precious! She carefully bit into it, one bite at a time.

At this time, a neatly dressed middle-aged woman of about forty years old sat down on the stone next to her. The woman had a friendly face and seemed particularly easy to get along with.

"Big sister, are you going to eat this?" The woman looked at the hard tortilla in Shumei's hand and asked in a suspicious tone.

"Um!"

Shumei gave her an awkward smile, humming a small "hmm," and subconsciously clutched the cake tighter. She didn't know if it was because of embarrassment, or if her words had touched a wound in Shumei's heart. After a moment of tension, she continued to swallow the cake with difficulty.