She mortgaged her house, which was worth 30,000 yuan, to get a 100,000 yuan loan.

"I did so because I 100 percent believed that I could win this bet. Otherwise, I would never rise from the ashes for the rest of my life," she said.

Yan won the bet. She started an agriculture company selling garlic, peppers and ginger that has netted export contracts collectively worth about 40 million yuan ($5.9 million).

"It can be said that I have been growing along with my province's foreign trade development," she said.

Instead of collecting products from farmers individually, her company has set up its own planting bases and agricultural cooperatives.