Period: I Kept the Man Who Put Me Through College

[Period setting + rugged man and his cherished wife + mutual healing + making money + doting with no angst]

“Take this money. If you don’t get into college, don’t come back and show your face.”

In a shabby earthen-brick house in the late 1970s, Chen Wan slapped a wad of bills smelling of machine oil and sweat onto Li Daiqin’s table. His eyes were as fierce as a wolf’s.

Li Daiqin was a down-and-out educated youth, sent to the countryside by her stepmother. She could only study late into the night because Chen Wan, the village’s most notorious layabout, bought and sold goods on the black market and did backbreaking labor for others to support her.

Everyone in the village said Chen Wan was blind. Once the educated youth returned to the city, she’d surely dump a country bumpkin like him.

Even Chen Wan thought so. He was only fit to look up at her, and he had already resigned himself to a lonely life after she soared away.

Until the day she went to register for college.

The factory manager’s son showed up in a jeep to woo her.

Chen Wan clenched his jaw and turned to leave, but Li Daiqin grabbed him by the collar.

In front of everyone, she slapped a savings passbook marking her as a ten-thousand-yuan household against his chest and rose onto her toes to kiss him.

“You promised to support me for the rest of my life. I’ve prepared the dowry. Will you marry me?”