In 1979, Shen Zhaozhao graduated from vocational school and turned down the chance to stay in the city, returning to Dahe Village with her bedding on her back.
Before she even reached the village, she learned about the childhood betrothal her father had arranged for her while drunk. The man worked at the county supply and marketing cooperative, had urban residency, and thought far too highly of himself. The very next day, his family came to break off the engagement. In front of half the village, they picked up the two jin of brown sugar they had brought and took it back. “A country girl like you isn't good enough for someone with urban residency.”
Shen Zhaozhao listened with a beaming smile, then turned to her father. “Fine, let them break it off. But the Lin family's pride can't take a hit. Let's find me a husband right here, right now, and show everyone I'm not unable to find a husband. I just don't want one.”
She pointed into the crowd at a demobilized soldier passing by with a load of firewood.
Gu Huaisheng was so poor his family had nothing to their name. Six brothers crowded into three mud-brick rooms, and he was desperate for somewhere to stay.
That night, she knocked on the door of his woodshed. “You're a demobilized soldier, and I'm a vocational school graduate. Let's team up and make a life together. You take care of the home, I'll take care of the outside. No one will dare look down on you. What do you say?”
Gu Huaisheng fell silent for a long while, then nodded.
Later
People at the commune said: “That live-in husband of Officer Shen's cooks better than the head chef at the canteen.”
People in the county said: “That son-in-law of County Chief Shen's seems quiet, but he can kill you with a look.”
Later still, someone asked Gu Huaisheng: “Do you regret becoming a live-in son-in-law back then?”
He gave a rare smile. “Not at all. I got the deal of a lifetime.”
A smiling-tiger woman official × a taciturn, ace-soldier live-in son-in-law
She builds her career in public, while he keeps the home warm
He enjoys the perks of being kept, and they both choose each other
