Marriage

Synopsis of the story of "Marriage" In the early 1980s, when the spring breeze of reform and opening up began to blow across China, the gap between urban and rural areas became increasingly prominent on both the material and spiritual levels. For rural girls in the suburbs and remote mountainous areas, "transferring from agriculture to non-agriculture", eating "commercial grain", and living in an apartment with running water and flushing toilets are the ultimate aspirations to escape the hard life of "the sun above your head and the sky at your back". Marriage has become the most direct bridge for them to bridge the urban-rural divide. The novel focuses on three rural girls with urban dreams - Lin Qiuyue from the mountainous area of ​​southern Shaanxi, Zhang Guilan from the rural area of ​​Tongchuan, and Wang Xiulian from the suburban countryside. Due to different opportunities, they married into Xi'an Textile City and surrounding urban families, but none of them entered the "smooth road to happiness" they imagined. Lin Qiuyue married Zhou Jianbin, a "literary man" who was paralyzed in his lower limbs and relied on a hand-wheeled wheelchair to sketch, Zhang Guilan married Zhao Weiguo, a "painter" with disabled hands and feet and a hobbling walk, and Wang Xiulian married Liu Jianguo, a short and indifferent civil aviation ground handler. For more than thirty years, Lin Qiuyue accompanied Zhou Jianbin as he struggled for survival, setting up street stalls, selling calligraphy and paintings, and selling antiques. Finally, he took advantage of the real estate market to gain a foothold, but his initial dreams were also worn away by the firewood, rice, oil, and salt; Zhang Guilan carried her disabled husband, young daughter, and sick mother-in-law (stepmother-in-law) on her shoulders. The family whose mother-in-law committed suicide relied on hard work and perseverance to support their lives, and even accepted her family members who came to work in the city to find stability in the ordinary; Wang Xiulian was trapped in a loveless, cold and violent marriage. They had a rare couple life for forty years. Even if they made a living by selling pork and fried dough cakes, they could not fill the spiritual gap.