A Beauty's Struggles in the Gobi Desert [1950s]

As soon as Wu Jiuzhi transmigrated to the 1950s, she took her whole family to seek refuge with relatives.

They encountered bandits on the way, and their lives hung by a thread.

Luckily, someone rescued them. She heard that he had gone to reclaim wasteland in the Gobi Desert.

Wu Jiuzhi thought love at first sight wasn't so unreasonable after all. She went after him not to repay her debt, but to stay by his side for good. She could wait for him to run into trouble and save him once, and then they'd be even.

But first, she took her family to stay with her father's cousin. After joining the community there, Wu Jiuzhi came up with plenty of ideas.

They cooked together, repaired houses, planted and harvested wheat, built a reservoir, planted and picked cotton, and grew and picked fruit.

She also treated patients and gave blood transfusions, tended to injured animals, taught literacy classes, and earned plenty of merit.

Her father's cousin told Wu Jiuzhi she ought to find someone to look after her, then introduced her to Mu Qinlai, a capable man in his service who, like her, never backed down from the challenges of the construction work.

Wu Jiuzhi: After being apart for a while, you've certainly become someone to look up to.

Mu Qinlai: Should I repay you for saving my life by marrying you?

Her father's cousin gave them this inscription: May you enjoy a long and happy marriage.

*

After Mu Qinlai rescued Wu Jiuzhi, she asked everywhere where he had gone. When she finally found him, he said he didn't know her.

Many years later, Mu Qinlai reminisced about the past with his grandchildren.

He said, "I've rescued more than thirty girls in my life. At first, every one of them said she wanted to marry me. I played dumb and said my memory was bad, then introduced them to my relatives, friends, buddies, and neighbors..."

"But your grandma was the one who, after marrying me, kept making my life's path winding and bumpy, yet somehow kept helping me overtake everyone on the curves..."

"And what happened after that?" The children gazed at him eagerly, hoping to hear more of Grandpa's wisdom.

"Well, she naturally became the boss of the household. If she tells me to stand, I wouldn't dare sit. If she sits, I wouldn't dare lie down..."

Wu Jiuzhi had just happened to hear all of this.

Wu Jiuzhi (smiling faintly): "Comrade Mu Qinlai, I'll give you one chance to rephrase that."

Theme: Having seen towering mountains and crossed deep rivers