In the dormitory of a state-owned factory in 1980, technician Ouyang Xinhai pushed the divorce report in front of his wife. Looking at the tampered promotion application and his wife's confident face, he clenched his fists - he had missed the opportunity three times to make room for his wife and brother, and this time, he would never give in. On the day he left home, he only took away an old quilt and the yellowed photo in his arms. In the photo, Xu Jinli with braids was holding a wild chrysanthemum, which was a promise he made when he was a boy.
As the green-skinned train bumped northward, he met Xu Jinli again under the old locust tree in Xinghua Village. She was standing on tiptoes drying sweet potatoes, and the setting sun dyed the side of her face yellow, exactly as in her memory. This girl, who had been scratched by life, did not ask him about his past, but only brought out a bowl of hot porridge: "Keep it."
He stayed and started as a farmer earning work points, using his skills as a technician to help the village repair machinery and improve irrigation. When he contracted orchards and opened the "Jinli Brand" juice factory, Xu Jinli silently learned to keep accounts; when her embroidery was favored by foreign traders, he helped her build the "Jinli Embroidery Workshop" to allow women in the village to earn money from their crafts. From adobe houses to brick houses, from bicycles to tractors, they followed the drumbeat of reform and opening up and turned their lives into poetry.
The previous divorce report became the starting point, and Qingmei's agreement finally became the destination. The apples in the orchard ripened and fell, the silk threads in the embroidery workshop were changed again and again, Ouyang Xinhai held Xu Jinli's hand and stood under the old locust tree, watching his children and grandchildren around his knees, listening to the roar of the factory - these were the most practical "fairy days" that he risked everything to find.
