A 1970s Marriage Swap: She Married a Battalion Commander, and the Rough-Hewn Man Spoils His Wife Every Night

[1970s + marriage swap + rugged battalion commander + marriage before love + awful relatives + sweet romance]

In 1973, the Lu family arranged a marriage swap with the Zhao family in a neighboring village so their lazy, gluttonous son could get a wife:

The Lu family’s daughter would marry into the Zhao family, and the Zhao family’s daughter would marry into the Lu family.

Lu Manyi was bound hand and foot and shoved into an ox cart. Only then did she learn she was supposed to marry the Zhao family’s dimwitted third son.

Just before the wedding ceremony, the Zhao family’s eldest son, Zhao Shijun, returned to the village on leave and kicked the courtyard gate open.

The rugged man, a battalion commander with a muscular physique, gave a cold warning:

“Father, untie her. If she’s willing, I’ll marry her!”

The villagers all said Lu Manyi was doomed to a hard life with a fearsome brute.

But only she knew Zhao Shijun would get up in the middle of the night to warm her feet, clumsily braid her hair, and wrap her in his arms to soothe her when she had nightmares.

The Lu family coveted his military pay and came begging for handouts again and again, but he drove them away with a carrying pole every time.

It was only when his transfer orders arrived that Lu Manyi discovered the truth behind the marriage swap was far more terrifying than she had imagined.