When Spring Comes

Feng Chun's stepmother wanted to sell her as a concubine to an old man. Her fiance had gone to the capital to take the imperial exams, and her father was away from home. With nowhere else to turn, Feng Chun set her sights on Lu You, her childhood friend from the same village. He was the only soldier in the village to return alive, stood over eight feet tall, and was said to be able to kill a bear with one punch. When they were children, Lu You always said he would protect her for the rest of her life. Feng Chun steeled herself, packed her things, and sneaked to his home under cover of darkness. * As soon as she arrived at the Lu home, Feng Chun ran into Lu You, who was about to leave. She approached him with a heavy heart and asked timidly, "Brother Lu You, can I stay here? I can do all kinds of work, and I don't eat much..." Then she noticed the luggage on his horse and hesitated. "Brother Lu You, are you going away?" The dashing man on horseback looked down at her for a long time, then curled his lips into a lazy smile. "I'm not going anywhere." * Her fiance was taking so long to return that, with no other choice, Feng Chun entered a fake marriage with her childhood friend. Not long after the wedding, however, she heard that her fiance had gotten engaged to someone else. Heartbroken, she somehow ended up truly becoming her childhood friend's wife. Afterward, the two tacitly agreed to live as a real married couple. Her childhood friend was wonderful in every way, except that at night he was rough and fierce. Whenever they were together, she would sob and call him "Brother Lu You," hoping he would go easy on her. Instead, he only became more relentless. They had lived this peaceful, happy life for more than half a year when one day, Feng Chun returned from the market and saw a group of guards kneeling before her husband in the courtyard, all calling out, "We beg the heir to return home!" The man who had been washing her small clothes came to meet her and took the half-sack of pears from her hand. "Next time you're short of anything, ask me to buy it." Just then, her former fiance appeared, eyes bloodshot. "Xiao Ye, you despicable coward!" Feng Chun stroked her still-flat belly and stood there, stunned. Who was he, really? Reading Guide: 1. A slice-of-life farming story, one-on-one, happy ending. 2. A slow, gentle, heartwarming romance. Theme: A simple, peaceful life is happiness too