Famine Year: Picking Up a Husband in the Deep Mountains, Who Turns Out to Be the Living King of Hell from the Eastern Depot

Cui Xiaoqi is a sixteen-year-old hunter in Qingshui Village during the Great Yu Dynasty, a woman who has transmigrated from the modern world and survived two years in a harsh, impoverished reality. The imperial court has imposed draconian marriage and childbearing taxes to boost the population after a devastating war; unmarried women over sixteen face an Unmarried Tax of eight taels of silver, with escalating penalties for childlessness. When tax collector Wu Dafu arrives at her door demanding payment, Cui Xiaoqi has no silver. The village chief, Wang Shougen, attempts to force her into a marriage with his lazy, gluttonous son, Wen Wazi, but she threatens him with an arrow, exposing his past corruption regarding a saved enemy spy. With only three days before the Official Matchmaker will forcibly assign her to an elderly widower, she devises a desperate plan: she claims to have already found a husband.

Cui Xiaoqi rescues a blood-soaked, unconscious man she finds in the wilderness, dragging him to her home to serve as her fake spouse. She burns his suspicious Feiyu robe and cleans the evidence while hiding him from the prying eyes of the village. The man, Pei Ji, awakens with amnesia and a lethal demeanor, holding a hairpin to her throat. He is secretly the Dongchang Supervisor, a feared intelligence agent, though he does not reveal his true identity. Cui Xiaoqi manipulates the situation by claiming she saved him from wolves and used her body heat to warm him, implying intimacy to bind him to her. She proposes a contract marriage: he provides his household registration to satisfy the tax authorities, and once the crisis passes, they will divorce. Pei Ji, suspicious of her motives but intrigued by her audacity, agrees to the arrangement.

The conflict intensifies when Wang Wenhan, the village chief’s son, discovers Cui Xiaoqi’s secret. He confronts her in the mountains, revealing he stole her bow and arrows and intentionally startled a wild boar to endanger her. A violent struggle ensues where Cui Xiaoqi outsmarts the brute, using the enraged boar to incapacitate him. She leaves him injured in the snow, forcing him to crawl back to the village, while she secures the boar to sell for much-needed funds. Meanwhile, Pei Ji recovers in her home, displaying supernatural agility and combat skills that hint at his true nature. He follows Cui Xiaoqi to the capital to retrieve his household registration, revealing he is not a commoner but a man of significant power and danger.

In the capital, Cui Xiaoqi sells the wild boar to a restaurant owner, Uncle Tong, earning three taels of silver. However, she is ambushed by three thugs who intend to rob and assault her. Just as she is overpowered, Pei Ji appears, silently killing one attacker and dispatching the others with lethal efficiency. He reveals his subordinates, Qiufeng and Luoye, who handle the cleanup. Cui Xiaoqi is terrified yet grateful, realizing she has married a man far more dangerous than she imagined. She demands the return of her father’s clothes, which Pei Ji had carelessly discarded, showing her deep attachment to her family’s memory. After securing the necessary documents, they return to the village, only to find Wang Shougen and Wu Dafu waiting at her courtyard, setting the stage for the final confrontation over her marital status and survival.