Su He, the daughter of a rice merchant in Kyoto, is forced to marry in place of her greedy elder half-sister. She is sent to the remote village of Qingzhu, where she becomes the nominal wife of Cheng Yan, a rugged hunter who has lost his mother and lives alone with the burden of supporting his father and raising his little sister. Their “marriage of convenience” begins with mutual suspicion. Using the excellent cooking skills she learned from her father in her previous life, Su He turns mountain greens and river fish into delicacies, while Cheng Yan puts his hunting skills to work building fences, catching game, and guarding their fields. Together, they clear wasteland, keep bees, and grow vegetables. Along the way, they argue over where to put the chicken coop and bicker over how salty the pickles should be. A neighbor’s dog even steals the fish they’ve just laid out to dry. But they also pass roof tiles to each other while repairing a leaky roof, and work in perfect harmony when feeding medicine to Cheng Yan’s feverish little sister. When Su He discovers that the “private savings” Cheng Yan hid in the woodshed are actually meant to buy her a new handkerchief embroidered with twin lotuses, and when Cheng Yan tastes the honey cakes Su He made especially for him with twice the usual honey, the two people thrown together by fate slowly warm each other’s hearts amid the bustle of everyday life.
