The Dragon-and-Phoenix Twins of Jiangan Village

Also known as: “Village Beauty, Don't Run From Your Pig Farm, the Handsome Mechanic's Love Is Overpowering”

When village beauty Chen Miaoran turned eighteen, her childhood betrothed, Zhao Tiao, returned from the army, and the two registered their marriage.

The national college entrance exam was reinstated in 1977. Chen Miaoran could have gotten into Beijing Normal University, but her mother-in-law burned her admission ticket, leaving her to watch her older brother and sister-in-law board a train to Nanjing. In 1978, when the exam came around again, her mother-in-law fell and broke her leg, urgently needing money for surgery, so Chen Miaoran's father dragged her straight out of the examination hall.

After two disastrous attempts at the exam, Chen Miaoran flew into a rage and decided to get rich raising pigs. She raised six pigs until they were plump and healthy, and people for miles around secretly called her the “Pig-Raising Village Beauty.”

Once she started raising pigs, Chen Miaoran always smelled like a pigsty. Furious a second time, she went to the city and opened a restaurant, earning the nickname “Spicy Sauce Beauty.”

By chance, her husband Zhao Tiao left the army and joined the local state-owned auto repair shop. Every morning at seven, Zhao Tiao rode his bike to the market to buy groceries. As soon as he got paid each month, he handed his wages over to Chen Miaoran that very afternoon, saying, “A man who doesn't spend his money on his wife is a failure.”

As time went by, the couple grew closer, had children, and earned more and more money...