Lin Xiaodi, Female Lead 1: A photographer who runs a private photo studio. Government-run studios are considered “legitimate,” while private photographers are suspected of “making porn” and “leaking secrets.” Business is tough, and they face discrimination.
Female Lead 1 is an underground member of the Chinese Communist Party. To conceal her identity, she has to work at a photo studio, where business is poor. Her family doesn’t understand her and even berates her, but as their only child, there’s little they can do to stop her. (Her mother’s uterine lining was very thin, and another pregnancy after giving birth to her would have endangered her life. Her father loved her mother and didn’t let her have another child. Later, however, he had an affair. Everyone in the neighborhood knew, and people started spreading rumors that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Neither parent could get a divorce because their elders objected, so they dragged things out. Their relationship went from mutual devotion to physical violence. Her mother died of illness in the third year of her father’s affair.)
Male disguise: Lu Jianguo / Real name: Lu Yaqin, Female Lead 2 (a woman disguised as a man): A private entrepreneur. Many people think, “Why give up a perfectly good secure job to become self-employed? You’ll be finished sooner or later.” Employees who quit state-owned enterprises to go into business are especially likely to be called “crazy” by their families.
Women are undervalued in society at the time. Female Lead 2 is an orphan with talents she has no chance to use. Using this identity, she pretends to be a rich family’s rebellious son who wants to experience life. Disguised as a man, she enters the private sector and climbs step by step to a position of power and influence.
