"A thorny presence is a legacy one woman leaves for another."
—Reader Review

"Before she became a mother, she was also a girl who once dreamed of being called 'Ms. Epic.'"
—Reader Review

★ When a mother who never learned to be "good at" being a mom, and a daughter desperate to be understood—torn between each other yet eventually reconciled—this deeply felt portrayal of the mother-daughter bond speaks to every soul that has ever been confused, struggled, and finally found peace in the maze of family love.
★ Within just half a month of its eBook release on WeRead (China's leading digital reading platform, often compared to Goodreads), it soared to the number one spot on the New Book chart, while also breaking into the top ranks of the Trending Books and Fiction charts! The print edition has sold over 20,000 copies in less than a year since publication—a story about womanhood that has struck a powerful chord with readers!
★ The protagonist, Li Yumei, is a factory worker, a single mother, and a patient whose body is slowly being seized by ALS. But she never bows to life. She protects those she loves in her own thorny way, spending a lifetime achieving a quiet heroism that belongs to an ordinary soul. In just 264 pages, the author distills the resilience and tenderness of an everyday woman's entire life—a book readers call "one that makes you smile through your tears."

This is the story of a woman who never learned to be a mother, yet became the greatest one in the world.

Li Yumei, a forty-year-old worker at a paper mill, is known as the "thorn" of Nantang. Sharp-tongued and fiercely strong-willed, she has managed to offend nearly everyone in her neighborhood. She resents her deceased husband and secretly clings to the memory of her first love. But after her husband's death, she makes an unexpected discovery: the quiet, unassuming man had loved her deeply and silently all along.

She has a daughter with a hearing impairment, a condition Li Yumei blames herself for. She loves her daughter more than anything, yet she can never seem to be the "right kind" of mother. A part of her—fierce, untamed, and belonging neither to the role of wife nor mother—stubbornly occupies her soul, making their relationship a constant struggle torn between love and thorns.

It is not until fate cruelly begins to freeze her body with ALS that Li Yumei starts to reexamine her life amidst this relentless misfortune. Her neighbors, once wary of her, organize a grand act of end-of-life care. In her final moments, this woman once so fiercely avoided finally receives the warmest echo of human kindness.

Years after she is gone, a bottle of perfume named "Ms. Epic" finds its way into her daughter's hands, delivered by an old friend. In that moment, the daughter understands: her mother had been examining the fate of women in her own way her entire life. She had completed a quiet revolution, proving her existence and worth as an ordinary person in an extraordinary era.

Wan Shunzhang is a new-generation Chinese novelist. Born in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, he is currently based in Ningbo.

He has previously published novels including Searching for Scales and The Melody My Heart Forgot. In 2024, his new work, My Tough Mother, was released on China's leading digital reading platform, WeRead, where it sparked significant enthusiasm. Within just half a month of its debut, it topped the New Book chart and secured high rankings on multiple other lists.

As a male writer, Wan demonstrates a remarkably insightful and delicate touch in this story centered on a female perspective and the mother-daughter relationship. He writes with an unadorned, authentic style, capturing the life experiences of ordinary people. Readers have praised his rarely seen nuanced expression. His work focuses on the fate of everyday individuals amidst the currents of a changing era, skillfully uncovering the heroic spirit hidden within ordinary lives within a realist framework.

Prologue 001
Li Yumei of Nantang Lane 003
The Dead Husband and the Returned First Love 015
Rivals, and Also Comrades 026
Father's Prose Poem 038
The Line of Happiness Etched in the Palm 045
Mother Became a "Soft-Shell Crab" 056
The War Between Mother and Daughter 074
Labor as Dignity 087
Wansan and Shen Qinwen 099
A Good Omen or a Bad Omen 115
The Noisy Soul 125
The Mother Who Got Frozen 137
Cowardice Is the Norm in Life 145
Let Me Be Your Daughter in the Next Life 158
Saying Goodbye to a Past Life 173
Summoning Father's Spirit 186
Reliance, Not Burden 199
My Tough Mother 207
I Ain't Dead Yet 224
Dear Old Friends 236
Guangming Sails Away 248
Goodbye, Nantang Lane 257