The 1970s: The Fearless Woman Gets Rich by Gathering Seafood and Supporting Her Family

[1970s + making a fortune gathering seafood + physically super-strong female champion + battle-worn, blood-coughing, pretty educated youth + the whole wicked family gets what's coming to them + hilarious power fantasy]

Chen Xi, a veteran sea-rescue team leader of twenty years, opens her eyes to find herself in 1979, in an East China Sea fishing village, as the “bad-luck girl” pushed into the sea by her cousin.

From the start, the eldest branch has no heirs, and her greedy relatives want to take everything. They want to seize her compensation money and sell her off in an arranged marriage?

Chen Xi rolls her wrists. This is right up her alley. First, physical purging, then they can talk about civility.

She picks up her 60-kilo second aunt with one hand, snaps the old lady's jujube-wood cane in two, and cracks the bluestone stove with a slap. The whole greedy family lines up and wets themselves in fright!

Rules are dead, fists are hard. She swings the compass in her hand, wades through the waves into the muddy bay to catch giant red-clawed crabs with her bare hands, and sweeps the shipwreck reef where no one dares to go!

The whole village thinks the widowed mother and orphan of the Chen family will starve to death. Then they see the eldest branch eating white flour buns and braised crab at every meal, making a fortune each day and counting money until their hands cramp.

Along the way, she fishes out Shen Shiyi, a battle-worn, handsome educated youth from the capital.

This aloof scholar is so frail that a sea breeze can blow him into the mud, and he coughs every three steps, yet his head is full of current data and precise hydrographic charts for targeting fish.

Coughing blood, Educated Youth Shen calculates, “Xi, this reef lies seven degrees against the current. Yellow croaker gather here. It's a heaven-sent opportunity for a kill...”

With heavy-duty wire cutters on her shoulder, Chen Xi smashes a sea monster with one slap. “Scholar, zip it and hide behind me. Watch me catch fish and trade them for you a military overcoat!”

From muddy tidal flats to an offshore trawler fleet, she tears apart bullies and subdues village tyrants. This tough-as-nails female champion and her sweet strategist make a wild fortune on the crest of the waves!