The stubborn wife went to raise pigs to keep her husband

She was once a doctor, and her family ran two clinics. To save her marriage, she wanted to start a pig farming business. She was even willing to risk her life to prove her determination. From doctor to pig keeper, what exactly was the motive behind her career change?

She is Chen Mei. When the reporter met Chen Mei, she was about to sell a batch of pigs. In 2016, the live pig market was booming. The batch of pigs Chen Mei was sending to market reached a price of 21 yuan per kg, and one pig could net more than 500 yuan, which made Chen Mei very happy.

Last year, Chen Mei's farm sent more than 2,000 live pigs to market, with sales of more than 4 million yuan. For two consecutive years, Chen Mei was named an "Advanced Individual in Women's Entrepreneurship and Employment" by the Suining City Women's Federation. During the interview, the reporter found that everyone spoke very highly of Chen Mei.

Chen Mei's friend Tang Qingping: As a woman, being able to carve out a world of her own and give up her good profession to do one thing, she is a model worth learning from.

Zeng Zhongyou: Many farmers say that Chen Mei looks frail, but inside she is very strong.

Chen Mei's friend Zhu Lanying: She dares to act and dares to take responsibility, the kind of person with a very manly character.

Chen Mei has raised pigs and has developed feelings for them.

Chen Mei: Look, this one, it will come to me on its own. Ordinary people cannot touch it. It will run and hide from them. Look, it will come to me on its own. After all, after so many years, it is like a child, this kind of feeling.

Some people find the smell of the farm pungent, but to Chen Mei, she can smell another kind of scent.

Chen Mei: I think of it as economy, as money. So many people cannot accept this smell when they smell it. When I smell it, I feel that wealth will keep coming.

However, as the interview went deeper, the reporter found that behind Chen Mei's strength, there was another side unknown to others.

Chen Mei was originally a doctor. The first reason she took the path of raising pigs was to save her marriage.

Chen Mei: At that time, I thought the farm could sustain our family's relationship, keep my husband by my side and my children by my side.

For the sake of raising pigs, Chen Mei was even willing to risk her own life.

Chen Mei's younger brother Chen Tao: She was even willing to risk her own life. It was all to do this thing well. She had never made such a great determination to do anything.

But also because of raising pigs, she once wanted to commit suicide.

Chen Mei: Seeing that river, I had a momentary thought, just the thought of simply ending it all.

What did Chen Mei go through? How did she gain wealth, and how did she grow into a local entrepreneurial star through hardship?

Chen Mei was born in 1980 in Suining City, Sichuan Province. In 2000, she graduated from Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine with a major in integrated traditional Chinese and Western medicine. Chen Mei got married right after graduation. Her husband's family ran a clinic. After marriage, Chen Mei and her husband opened another clinic. The two clinics had an annual income of nearly 200,000 yuan.

At the end of 2001, Chen Mei had a son. However, not long after, Chen Mei discovered that something was wrong with her husband. He not only paid little attention to the clinic and family matters, but even began staying out all night.

Chen Mei: He especially liked to play outside and did not come home much. Many times I could not find him. Sometimes when my husband came home at dawn, I would see when I got up that he had been home only a short while and then was gone again.

Not coming home at night and impossible to find during the day, under Chen Mei's questioning, she learned that her husband had become addicted to online games and could not free himself. Looking at her son, only a few months old, and the pillow beside her that was always empty, Chen Mei wanted to use a method to win back her husband's heart as it slowly drifted away.

In 2004, the pork market was rising all the way, with one jin of pork selling for fourteen to fifteen yuan. The booming market attracted Chen Mei. Chen Mei had an idea. She wanted to open a live pig farm and let her husband manage it. Chen Mei wanted to use this method to make her husband rein in his playfulness and put more thought into the family.

Chen Mei: I just wanted him to seriously devote himself to a career, to trap him in it, and make him focus more on that career.

In June 2004, Chen Mei took out more than 800,000 yuan of the family's savings and opened a farm in her hometown of Xinqiao Town. She bought back more than 80 sows and more than 500 piglets. Her husband was responsible for managing the farm, while Chen Mei continued working as a doctor at the clinic.

At first, life was just as Chen Mei had once longed for. Her husband managed the farm and no longer indulged in games. Every morning when she woke up, she could see him. However, a crisis was quietly approaching.

In 2005, pork prices fell sharply, from more than ten yuan per jin to four or five yuan per jin. That year, the farm lost more than 300,000 yuan. The family began using the clinic's income to subsidize the farm, but in the next two years, the live pig market remained sluggish. By 2007, the income from the two clinics was no longer enough to fill the farm's losses, and they owed a lot of debt.

To save money, Chen Mei's husband bought a batch of slightly moldy corn at a low price as feed. As a result, this batch of corn became the trigger and brought disaster to the family.

Commercial pigs that could be sent to market in another dozen or so days suffered food poisoning after eating the moldy corn. More than 300 pigs died one after another, and the more than 200,000 yuan that was almost within reach was lost.

Chen Daijun: There were pigs weighing several dozen to a hundred or so jin, the kind that were about to turn into money, and many died. Dozens died at a time, dozens at a time. Anyway, it really made one feel disheartened to watch.

Chen Mei: For people like us, with this scale, this kind of family, if a farm loses two or three hundred pigs, it means bankruptcy.

Misfortunes never come singly. In July 2007, Chen Mei's mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer and needed surgery and chemotherapy immediately. The surgery fee and chemotherapy fee together required more than 50,000 yuan. The family's money had always been managed by Chen Mei. The farm had already used up the family's savings. At this moment, the mother-in-law's surgery fee was an enormous number for this family.

However, what chilled Chen Mei even more was her husband's attitude. At first, the farm was built to keep her husband by her side. Now the farm was almost bankrupt, and waves of debt collectors kept coming. Chen Mei had originally hoped that if husband and wife were of one mind, their sharpness could cut through metal, but at this time her husband said he would no longer manage the farm and wanted to go with friends to do an engineering project.

Chen Mei: It felt as if the sky was about to fall. I spent so much effort and so much money on a thing for you to do, and you gave up halfway. At a time when everything was a mess, you actually said you would not do it anymore. At that time I hated him especially, and I really did not understand him, truly.

This lake witnessed the darkest day in Chen Mei's life. One day in August 2008, Chen Mei received three phone calls. They were respectively the hospital urging payment of her mother-in-law's surgery fee, the feed factory pressing for payment, and the workers demanding wages. All three calls were related to money.