Brothers

Author: Fei Hongda
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-04-01
Features: Brothers features numerous female characters, each with different backgrounds, temperaments, and circumstances, yet all are vividly portrayed. Wu Yuanyun is calm as a still lake in repose, yet swift as a rabbit in motion. She is a needle hidden within cotton, soft yet firm, capable of strategizing and commanding with ease, revitalizing the declining Shi family mansion. Business flourishes in the city, wealth rolls in, and she manages her husband and children wisely. In the village, she maintains a balanced and thriving life, engaging in farming and brewing, balancing agriculture and side businesses.
Wu Yuanyun's, on the misty night when she was digging sand for the incense burner in the Huaili family, reveals the curiosity of a young girl discovering love, filled with moving charm. She is lively, playful, and clever, escaping the fate of being sold for five silver dollars to a small merchant. She is steady and resolute, using both soft and hard tactics to carve out her own path.
Goutao is the illegitimate daughter of Shi Qinghu's father and Yan'er, unaware of her true parentage. Kind-hearted yet unfortunate, she loses her husband and child, living in constant anxiety. She narrowly escapes abuse from the notorious bandit Zhou Heilian and avoids being sold into a brothel. Though her life later stabilizes, she falls in love with her half-brother Qinghu, leaving her inner peace unfulfilled.
Haihua is worldly-wise, tolerant, and composed, a typical capable housewife of the agricultural era. Her daughter Juhua, though appearing only twice, conveys the harshness and difficulties of life. The first time, she is a shy and beautiful girl, gentle and sentimental. The second time, though not long after, she is a woman struggling for survival, devoid of humanity.
Yan'er, with little ink devoted to her, has a life filled with misfortune that begins and ends abruptly, yet leaves a lasting impression, unforgettable and unresolved.
Reader: Xiao Mei