[Marriage first, love later + food + farming + raising kids + easygoing everyday life]
After transmigrating, Lin Qingzhu found herself in a disastrous situation from the start: pregnant with her late fiance's posthumous child, surrounded by wolves in both her husband's family and her own. In the original story, she was tormented to death in less than a month. Lin Qingzhu... figured that a bad life was better than no life at all.
Standing in front of her late fiance's comrade, a future big shot destined to be powerful and alone for the rest of his life, she put on a performance she'd rehearsed all night, her expression conveying four parts vulnerability, three parts helplessness, two parts desperation, and one part resolve to burn her bridges.
"I'm pregnant. I... want to have this baby. Can you take me with you?"
Han Bai was silent for a moment, then looked steadily at her. "All right."
Following the future big shot from the far south to the far north, Lin Qingzhu arrived at the military housing compound. She made friends with the neighbors and turned over the soil to plant vegetables, making the cold, empty home feel warm and cozy. A month later, on a sunny day, she waited until all the neighbors were around and put on a show of affected coyness. "Oh, I feel sick! Ugh!"
Herding ducks by the stream, catching frogs in the rice paddies, picking wild greens in the fields, gathering mushrooms after the rain. Spring, summer, fall, and winter; three meals a day, all year round; smoke curling from the chimneys.
Han Bai never imagined that the woman who'd seemed so fragile and helpless at first could turn life in the country's farthest north, where no one else wanted to go, into a poem.
Lin Qingzhu: Just kidding. This is her happy place.
* The focus is on a relaxed country life, with marriage first, love later, and raising a child. There's plenty of food throughout.
Note: Her fiance really is dead and won't come back to life. Lin Qingzhu's "affected coyness" is something the two of them agreed on. The child won't learn the truth about their parentage until they're an adult.
Theme: Live life with optimism, no matter what.
