The Beautiful Woman’s Mistaken Marriage as a Military Wife [1970s]

Su Rui is a woman who transmigrated into a 1970s Chinese rural novel two years prior, inhabiting the body of an eighteen-year-old girl in Xiaoba Village. The original story centered on a heroic military commander, Fang Chiye, with Su Rui destined to be a tragic supporting character abused by a cruel widower. Determined to escape this fate, she aims to live a safe, independent life by marrying a live-in son-in-law. However, her plans are immediately thwarted by poverty and the oppressive local leadership of Guo Qingwang, who favors men over women and denies female workers equal pay. When her suitor, Xiao Hongxing, marries another woman due to the high bride price, Su Rui resolves to fight for her rights rather than submit to despair.

Her first major conflict arises from the systemic gender inequality in the village work point system. Women are paid six points while men receive ten, despite women often working harder. Su Rui confronts Guo Qingwang, who dismisses her appeals to constitutional equality. Undeterred, she devises a plan to organize a labor competition between men and women to prove their capabilities and demand equal pay. With the support of Director Zhao, the village women’s affairs director, Su Rui prepares the competition, utilizing a corncob sheller she invented to give the women a technological advantage. The event draws a large crowd, and the women of Xiaoba Village decisively defeat the men from the neighboring Qingnan Village, who are accustomed to slacking off. Guo Qingwang is forced to honor the agreement, raising women’s work points to ten, marking a significant victory for gender equality in the village.

Simultaneously, Su Rui faces personal threats from her stepmother, Su Yuqin, and stepsister, Su Chang’e, who seek to sell her into a marriage with a disabled widower for money. When a mentally disabled man, Si’er, who has become obsessively attached to Su Rui, beats up Guo Qingwang’s son Guo Jiarong, the situation escalates. The fool’s family arrives to propose marriage, offering a substantial bride price. Su Chang’e, jealous of Su Rui’s beauty and opportunities, sabotages the situation by claiming Su Rui is already engaged to a military officer, using a fabricated address to drive the fool’s family away. This act inadvertently saves Su Rui from the widower but exposes her to a new danger: the matchmaking letter she was forced to write to the fake officer is sent by her naive eldest sister, Su Hongpei, who accidentally mixes up the envelopes.

The narrative shifts as the main plot of the novel begins to unfold. Military trucks arrive in Suhua Township, signaling the arrival of Fang Chiye and his unit to build a hydroelectric station. In the military camp, Fang Chiye receives a photograph of Su Rui that was mistakenly delivered to his unit. Struck by her image, he becomes curious about the woman in the photo, unaware that she is the same girl in his novel’s background. The misdelivered letter and photo create an unexpected link between Su Rui and the novel’s protagonist. As Su Rui continues to navigate village politics and family schemes, she remains focused on securing her independence. The convergence of her personal struggle for equality and the encroaching main plot sets the stage for her future interactions with Fang Chiye, as she seeks to rewrite her destiny away from the tragic path originally written for her.