The Village Beauty Can't Read a Single Word

I've finished the final chapter today, so this book ends here. Thank you to all the lovely readers who came across it and clicked on it!

This is not a wish-fulfillment story. This is not a wish-fulfillment story. This is not a wish-fulfillment story!

Blurb:

Zhen Tao has never been to school and can't recognize a single character, but she's clever and sharp-witted, with perceptive eyes.

Her family are outsiders in the village, with no one to rely on. She doesn't want to keep working in the fields, and she wants her younger brother to learn a trade, but they have no money. So when a marriage proposal from the Zhang family in the same village comes her way, eighteen-year-old Zhen Tao makes a high-stakes bet with herself: she'll marry him!

Everyone in the village feels sorry for Zhen Tao. She's so beautiful, and she could have married much better. Besides, the Zhang family is poor, and the eldest son, Zhang Lin Yi, has been a "gai liuzi" since childhood. He's unreliable! But only Zhen Tao knows that although the Zhang family is poor and Zhang Lin Yi is nothing special, the "gai liuzi" went away to learn tailoring. Now he not only makes fine clothes, but keeps himself clean and presentable, unlike the men who roll up their trousers and come home caked in mud. More importantly, her younger brother now has a free teacher, and his future trade is secured.

Later, Zhang Lin Yi becomes the first person in the county to have ten thousand yuan to his name. The villagers turn green with envy and say Zhen Tao has a sharp eye and knows how to pick a man. They say she saw Zhang Lin Yi's superb tailoring skills from the very beginning.

Later still, Zhang Lin Yi opens the first clothing factory in the city, and villagers go in groups to ask for jobs. Zhang Lin Yi smiles modestly, unusually bashful, and says, "I don't make the decisions at home."

The story begins in the late 1950s.

The timeline and events may differ slightly from history.

Theme: Four turbulent decades, a life of hard work.