her father presided over their family. but he did not work due to a negative attitude to life and the addiction to opium. lute's mother, lu, a woman in the vanguard of female self-reliance, decided to divorce with her father, the patriarch who was adrift in post-qing china. maybe due to her special family background, the little girl was different in some significant way from others of the same age. her psychological age is much older than actual age.