A period romance: a rough ex-soldier × a gentle, sweet wife, with a 12-year age gap, both virgins, HE
In 1985, on the wedding night of Su He in Xiaoyang Village, Yinan, the groom ran off with his first love.
Before the wedding decorations had even been taken down, she became the village’s “bad-luck woman.”
Her mother-in-law called her a husband-killer, her sister-in-law flipped over her dining table, and even the yellow dog at the village entrance barked at her more than once.
Then the rough-hewn neighbor, twelve years older than her, kicked down the door of her in-laws’ house.
He still had dirt from digging an irrigation ditch slung over his shoulder. His sweat-soaked undershirt clung to his muscular body, and his voice was as raspy as sandpaper:
“From today on, I’ve got He’er covered.”
The whole village erupted.
Who didn’t know Lu Handong was famous for being a tough guy?
He dared to take on the village bully while running a fish farm, and made city-dwellers’ money hauling freight. Yet he was thirty and still unmarried. Everyone said he had someone in his heart.
Su He avoided him, but he built the wall between their homes higher overnight. “To block the wind.”
When she fainted from hunger out in the fields, the cafeteria he ran immediately put up a help-wanted notice for a kitchen assistant. “You’ll be fed.”
When her ex-husband regretted everything and tried to come back, Lu Handong hauled him straight to the village committee. “Either transfer your household registration and get lost, or I’ll arrange to move your grave.”
The most sensational night came when a rainstorm washed away the old house.
He wrapped her in his military coat and pulled her from the rubble. Blood ran down his forehead, but his eyes were startlingly bright.
“He’er, come live with me.”
Her lips were trembling, and she hadn’t answered yet when he suddenly scratched his head and blurted out:
“Um... I’ve been carrying my household registration booklet around for five years.”
Rural life is closely related to reality