In 1974, everyone in Yangliushu Brigade is gossiping: the city-born officer looks down on country girls, and the Ji family's youngest daughter has been waiting so long for her fiancé to return that the engagement is sure to fall through.
Ji Qingwu is twenty years old, a high school graduate, pretty and well-mannered.
Her grandparents dote on her, her parents protect her, and she gets along well with her brothers and sisters-in-law. Hers is a large, close-knit family with good values, and they live a comfortable, respectable life in the production team. She takes care of the household, is deft and meticulous, and has a steady temperament. She's the kind of girl rarely seen for miles around.
Ning Chuan is twenty-five, born in the city to a family with an impeccable background and comfortable means.
He enlisted at eighteen. After seven years in the army, he has already become a battalion commander at a young age, with a bright future ahead of him.
Everyone assumes he'll marry a city girl from a family like his own. Instead, he walks right into the Ji family's courtyard in Yangliushu Brigade and takes one look at Ji Qingwu before deciding she's the one.
The gossip never stops: city people look down on country folk, and the two of them are bound to split up sooner or later.
In front of the entire brigade, Ning Chuan speaks with firm conviction:
“I'm marrying Ji Qingwu, not her household registration.”
“If she's willing to wait for me, I'll protect her for the rest of her life. If she's a country girl, then I'll make her the most envied officer's wife around.”
Years later
He rises through the ranks, with a heart devoted entirely to her.
She runs their home in peace, waiting for him with all her heart.
The Qingwu from the mountain village ultimately becomes the woman at the heart of a city officer, someone no one can touch.
[No vile relatives + a doting family + mutual devotion + neither looks down on the other's urban or rural background + a sweet, slow-burn story of lifelong companionship]
What is it written? It is a rural novel in the 1970s. It feels like it is written as a wealthy family novel. However, it is written in a non-hurried and slow way. It is a novel that makes people want to sleep after reading it.