The Little Widow Next Door Gets Rich Again [The 1980s]

Li Xingran, a soldier who's deep in debt, poor, stingy, and capable of doing any job, VS Hua Yu, a beautiful, sultry, fiery widow who's a woodworking whiz and loves to be lazy

Li Xingran went to deliver compensation money to the family of a militiaman who had died in service. He only entered the village early because he wanted to pick some soapberries for free to wash his clothes, but ended up stumbling upon a domestic drama: a father-in-law had tied up his widowed daughter-in-law and was planning to sell her off to the mountains.

Once the two sides started arguing, it turned out that the son who'd just died had never cared for his wife and had been pining after the girl next door. Even more outrageous, the father had been secretly involved with the girl's mother for decades. A father and son each fell for a mother and daughter: the whole mess was more tangled than hemp.

Now that the mother-in-law and son were both dead, had the daughter-in-law somehow become an obstacle to their loving family? The girl next door and her mother didn't want the wife to receive any of the compensation money, and wanted to use her child as an excuse to move in. So they came up with a vicious plan to sell her and be done with it.

The newly widowed Hua Yu had angered the clan chief, been schemed against by her father-in-law, and had an uncle waiting to sell her off again. With no way to survive in the village, she clutched her child and the money, crying her heart out as she begged him for help. What could he do? He could only take her away.

He never expected this supposedly fierce, unvirtuous young wife to be a treasure, one who would soften even his iron-hard heart.

Hua Yu lost her mother at eight and her father at ten. Her uncle's family treated her like a servant, and when she came of age, they wanted to sell her to a fifty-year-old man. Fortunately, Zhang Wenle's mother, Lin Lan, saved her, and she married Zhang Wenle. Zhang Wenle apprenticed as a carpenter, but was hopelessly slow. Hua Yu could master in one look what he couldn't learn in ten tries.

Unable to bear eating coarse food, she secretly helped Zhang Wenle with his work. Just as the family was starting to prosper, her mother-in-law and Zhang Wenle died one after another.

Hua Yu was devastated when her mother-in-law died. She wasn't as upset when Zhang Wenle died; she just wanted to raise her child in peace.

Her father-in-law joined forces with two widows to seize the compensation money and family property, and even wanted to use her as a stepping stone to earn himself a good reputation. With danger on all sides, Hua Yu could only cling to the comrade who'd come to deliver the compensation money, hoping to get a letter of introduction so she could escape this den of wolves.

The People's Liberation Army comrade had everything going for him: tall, long-legged, strong, handsome, with a pleasant voice, and capable of any dirty or tiring job. The only problem was that he was poor, stingy, deep in debt, and well into his thirties with no prospects of finding a wife.

Theme: Hard work changes your life.