In the autumn of 1983, Lu Mingchuan, who failed the college entrance examination, returned to the mountain village, and his ears were full of rumors.
People in the village said that his aunt Shen Suyun, who had been widowed for three years, would "seduce" his brother-in-law sooner or later. The clan elders said that according to the old rules, this kind of "immoral behavior" should be punished.
But no one knows——
When he was sixteen, both his parents died. It was Shen Suyun who stood in front of him and received a slap from his alcoholic uncle.
The five yuan a month for living expenses when she was re-reading her studies was saved by staying up late at night and sewing, coin by coin.
Now, he clenched his fists as he looked at the woman in front of him who was haggard from years of toil, but who only said "there is hot water in the pot" when he came back.
"She is my aunt." He said in front of everyone, and then said every word: "She is also the person I want to protect for the rest of my life."
From confronting each other in public in the grain drying field, to holding hands against the whole village in the ancestral hall; from him relying on knowledge to become a team leader at the county construction site, to her opening the first tailor shop in the village - those who were waiting to see the joke finally waited for the smoke from the new house they built brick by brick, and a dignified marriage certificate with a red seal.
Many years later, the old man in the village pointed to the pair of white-haired figures leaning on each other by the river and said to the young man:
"Look, it takes a lifetime to turn gossip into good stories.
