A Bride in Her Place: The Abandoned Village Girl Makes a Fortune in the 1980S

Hongqi Village in the 1980s. Su Jinxiu, the eldest sister, had already set her wedding date. But to run away with the young man she was seeing, she packed up and eloped in the middle of the night. To repay the enormous bride price and save face, her parents, who favored sons over daughters, pushed out their second daughter, Su Wanhe, who had always worked like an ox and endured every beating and insult, to take her elder sister’s place. Her fiancé, Lu Jingchuan, was cold and formidable, with ruthless methods. He had been meant to marry Su Jinxiu, and when he learned that another bride had been substituted, he flew into a rage. The Su family made a scene and shamelessly refused to budge, determined to use their second daughter to fill the hole they’d dug. Everyone waited to see Su Wanhe make a fool of herself, sure she would suffer endlessly after marrying in her sister’s place. But no one expected it. Having suffered at the hands of her birth family, Su Wanhe refused to be blindly obedient or weak after marriage. She had skilled hands at the needle, knew how to manage a household and keep accounts, and slowly built a life of her own. Lu Jingchuan had been resistant from the start, but as he watched this young woman endure her injuries with unshakable grit, he gradually fell for her and began protecting her. The Su family still wanted to keep showing up to take what they could, draining the couple’s money and food to support their son and help their down-and-out eldest daughter living elsewhere. Su Wanhe wouldn’t give an inch, and Lu Jingchuan stood firmly in front of her. Far from home, Su Jinxiu’s dream of a sweet romance fell apart completely. After enduring hardship and grievance, she finally looked back and saw that the marriage that should have been hers had become her younger sister’s enviable life. She regretted it to the depths of her soul. Unable to accept it, she came back again and again to stir up trouble and take back everything she believed belonged to her. Facing biased parents, a troublesome elder sister, and gossipy neighbors, Su Wanhe held tight to the life she had built: I’ve endured