In the 1970s, I Escaped the Mountains by Being Heartless

Power can change your fate, so use yourself as bait to pursue it.

But later, she realized that a parasitic vine clinging to someone else would always be weak.)

(That meager bit of power could not achieve her goal, so she decisively pulled away and gave it up, searching for another way forward. The men who had given her advantages through their power could all be thrown aside, too.)

The girls in the mountains were even given names centered around the men in their families. Like the others, Zhaodi and Pandi, her name was Wangge. The moment she received her university acceptance letter, she thought that going to college would let her repay her brother and support her family better. But when she opened her eyes, she discovered that her own trusted older brother had sent her to the bed of a man in the village as a bride in an exchange marriage. With the help of her sisters, she later escaped the mountains and made it to the capital...

Looking at the man before her, her thoughts raced. “Can you get me into the Women’s Federation?” The man coolly raised his eyes and sneered, looking at her as if she were an ant. “Only if you agree to my terms.”

As she watched the numb souls in the Women’s Federation, she suddenly understood how powerless she was. Her gaze shifted to the older man with even greater authority. But a visit to her family finally made her understand: the women in the mountain villages could leave and stand on their own, but they could not rely on men alone. They had to truly hold money in their own hands to do it.

She resigned without hesitation and headed south. The man behind her, however, was red-eyed. “You use me and then run? Have you no conscience?” The girl smiled faintly. “Don’t you know? It was my lack of conscience that let me escape the mountains.”

The female lead starts out naive and grows over time. Please be patient as she transforms.