When the Dam Breaks

Huihui never knew her mother. She was a newborn abandoned in freezing winter waters — pulled out and saved by a half-deaf man who became her father. No blood between them. Just eighteen years of scraping by in a forgotten village, enduring cold stares, a cruel stepmother, and relatives who only schemed for their share of nothing. His hearing was broken. His voice was always too loud. But every ounce of warmth he had, he gave to her. Behind a tiny pancake stall, he poured all his hopes into his daughter. And Huihui buried herself in her books — because there was no way in hell she'd let his love go to waste.