Good family women

Author: Cao Mingxia
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-02-01
Features: A bizarre coming-of-age story set in an era of sexual ignorance. In a northern forest region, on a snowy night after work, Liu Hongbing encounters a strange man. The man grabs her with great effort, but instead of raping her in the snow pit, he observes and studies that part of her body while she is unconscious, like a surgeon. After returning home, Liu Hongbing thinks she is "done for." Like many young people of her time, her understanding of sexual matters was that once a man's hand touched her, she was finished. Even more absurdly, she believed that her monthly menstrual blood came from blood vessels inside her body. From that night on, for a whole month, Liu Hongbing listened to her body, hoping to hear the sound of surging blood flowing. "If my period comes, everything will be fine. If it doesn't, something must be wrong." The gossip of married women she had heard, Liu Hongbing took to heart and applied to herself. Her fear of not having her period far surpassed the incident from that night. Later, Liu Hongbing, in her own clever way, hastily married a young worker, Huo Zhiguo. After the marriage, Liu Hongbing finally understood what it meant for a woman to be "done for." But by then, the curtain of her life's misfortunes had already been drawn. Every night, she fought like a woman defending her territory, engaging in judo and sumo with Huo Zhiguo to protect her home. Deep down, she detested and resisted sexual intimacy with her husband. Despite this, Liu Hongbing still had a son, Huo Duodu. Meanwhile, the lesbian feelings of female worker Zhang Lihua for Liu Hongbing plunged her into deeper confusion. Compared to this, she thought perhaps accepting Huo Zhiguo would be better. But by then, Huo Zhiguo had already found another woman to satisfy his physical needs and paid the price with his life. Liu Hongbing's only surge of desire came years later when her factory closed down, and she became a hotel receptionist. There, she met her elementary school classmate Yu Dongliang. Yu Dongliang's wife had died, and one night, she suddenly thought that she had not had a man in a long time, all these years. Liu Hongbing had always wondered why, as a female worker, Zhang Lihua was so wealthy. She also couldn't figure out why the man she had encountered back then looked so much like her factory director. In the end, these mysteries were solved, but new enigmas emerged.