A Beautiful Young Woman Joins Us on the Flight from Famine

Shu Wanxiu was born with a beautiful face, but a desperate flight from famine left her so emaciated that not a trace of her former beauty remained.

After enduring countless hardships to settle in Fangyuan County, her new neighbors did not think much of her at first.

She looked like nothing more than a scrawny girl with a hint of liveliness in her eyes.

After she had been there for a while, Shu Wanxiu gradually filled out, and half her former beauty returned.

The aunties who had grown close to her admired her clear, fresh beauty and urged her, "It's so hard supporting your family by yourself. With a face like yours, why not marry into a decent household and have your husband help you raise your little nephew?"

Shu Wanxiu would only smile and say nothing.

Who would want to marry a woman and help raise her nephew from her maiden family? It was unheard of.

But she had promised her dying brother and sister-in-law to take in their orphaned child. She would never abandon her nephew.

Whether she married late or never married at all, she would bear the consequences herself.

Xun Yi was a rough-hewn man who spent all day hammering iron by the furnace, his shirt off.

When he heard that refugees had settled in the village, he felt a kinship with them and went out of his way to help.

He learned that the Shu family had nothing, not even a cooking pot, so he made them a new one. When spring came and it was time to farm, they had no tools, so he carefully picked out a set and lent it to them.

He did everything he could to help whenever he learned the Shu family lacked something.

Until... the young lady of the Shu family turned him down.

He knew why. She was afraid she would owe him more kindness than she could ever repay.

So he did as she wished.

But for some reason, every time he saw her bent over in the fields, laboring beneath the sun, he felt more and more uneasy.

He even thought about it all day and lay awake at night.

At last, one day, he could no longer stand it. Before dawn, he hurried to the Shu family's fields and spent half an hour pulling weeds for her.

After that, his food tasted better and he slept more soundly.

But... that morning, an auntie from the same village caught them in the act.

First she laughed at him mercilessly, then she offered some advice: "You're both unmarried. Why do good deeds without letting her know? The Shu girl is honest and proper. Without a formal relationship, she naturally won't accept too much from you. Only a good family could raise a girl like her. You're a grown man. If you have feelings for her, why not ask someone to arrange a match and find out whether she'd be willing to marry you?"

1. The male lead has a rough, rugged appearance.

2. The male lead is very slow to recognize his own feelings. He is the type to give a lot without realizing it.

3. The female lead will raise her nephew, but she will not sacrifice herself or go to extraordinary lengths to earn money so he can study for the imperial exams.

4. This is an ordinary farming-life story. Neither the male lead nor the female lead's nephew will enter government service.

5. Both leads are sexually inexperienced.

Theme: Live optimistically, whether facing natural disasters or human calamities.