'My man, your man... What was a man, anyway?' For a moment, Xu Changqing couldn't fathom why women, even in jest, always treated their men as if they were everything.
Just as she could never understand why her mother, simply because she hadn't birthed a son, acted as if she were a lesser person, trapping herself in a cage of her own making.
It was as if hiding in Baizigou would prevent outsiders from learning she had failed to give her husband's family a son. As if staying within Baizigou could somehow keep her man from straying.
Her mother was lucky to have met her father. Just try it with another man. Let him be away for years on end with no wife or daughter to look after him, and see if his heart wouldn't change. See if he'd still be 'your man'.
There was so much she couldn't understand, but life had to go on. Xu Changqing didn't dwell on why the ownership of a single flashlight had to be decided by the strength of their respective men.
