The moment Cheng Jinxiu opens her eyes, she has become a spoiled young educated youth in the 1970s, and she’s walked straight into a mess.
She has just smashed the ancestral jade bangle of Fu Mingyuan, a future big shot, and kept his grandmother’s lifesaving medicine.
Who could have guessed that this shabbily dressed “reactionary intellectual,” sent to the countryside to shovel manure in a pigsty, would be exonerated and return to the city two years later, becoming a powerful man who could call the shots?
Cheng Jinxiu is scared out of her wits. That very night, she puts on a show of girlish petulance and secretly brings him medicine as an apology.
When currying favor with the future big shot fails, she turns to buttering up his grandmother. All she wants is for him to spare a nobody like her once he’s made it big.
Meanwhile, she quietly puts her agricultural expertise on display: saving sick pigs at the farm, improving their feed, and controlling a cotton pest outbreak with a single move. She keeps the crops and livestock running smoothly.
At first, Fu Mingyuan is wary of Cheng Jinxiu, convinced she is up to another trick.
The other young educated youths also mock her for “making a fuss over nothing.”
But as they spend more time together, Fu Mingyuan discovers that Cheng Jinxiu is not only capable but always looks out for him: bringing him clothes and food, and even standing up for him when he is framed!
Blushing, Fu Mingyuan tests the waters. “Do you... still like me?”
Cheng Jinxiu breaks down on the spot. “Help! I don’t! I’m just trying to stay alive!”
Later, after the big shot makes his comeback and returns to the city, he drives a jeep straight to the entrance of the state-run restaurant.
He wraps his arms around Cheng Jinxiu, who is on a blind date, and holds her tight. “I thought you liked me. How dare you look for someone else behind my back?”
Cheng Jinxiu is on the verge of tears. If she’d known her little schemes would make him fall for her, she would have stuck to agriculture and stayed away from the big shot!
