In 1980 Shidianzi Village, Qiao Qingyan is a dedicated elementary school teacher who has endured years of emotional abuse from her stepmother Chen Xiuying and stepsister Chen Xiaomeng. After her mother's death, Qingyan was sent to live with her aunt in the city, but she was forced to return two years ago to a hostile household where she was treated as an outsider. Her life appears to be turning around when Jiang Runsheng, a handsome announcer at the township broadcasting station and her childhood acquaintance, proposes marriage. Qingyan accepts, hoping for a stable future with a man she respects as an older brother figure.
However, the engagement is shattered when villagers discover Runsheng and Chen Xiaomeng together in a wheat stack. Chen Xiaomeng, who has secretly harbored a deep, obsessive hatred for Qingyan since childhood, deliberately seduced Runsheng while he was intoxicated. By claiming she is now Runsheng's woman, she forces the village chief, Runsheng's father, to arrange their marriage to save the family's reputation. Runsheng, though guilty and still harboring feelings for Qingyan, submits to his father's authority and accepts the arrangement. Qingyan, realizing the hollowness of Runsheng's affection and disgusted by his weakness, publicly slaps both of them and declares the engagement over. She asserts that anything easily stolen was never worth keeping.
The fallout leaves Qingyan in a precarious position. Her stepmother and father, having already accepted a bride price from the Xiao family in the neighboring village, demand that Qingyan marry in Chen Xiaomeng's place. The Xiao family is headed by Xiao Jinye, a rugged, uneducated hunter known for his physical prowess but rumored to be impotent. Chen Xiaomeng and her mother scheme to send Qingyan to this miserable fate, believing she will suffer in poverty and emotional neglect. When confronted, Qingyan learns of their plan to sell her to an old, depraved bachelor if she refuses. Accepting her reality, she agrees to the marriage but demands a dowry of two hundred yuan and double the household goods originally intended for Chen Xiaomeng.
On the wedding day, both sisters marry simultaneously. Chen Xiaomeng weds Jiang Runsheng, while Qingyan is escorted to the Xiao family home. There, she meets Xiao Jinye's mother, Zeng Yumei, a gentle, limping widow who raises her intellectually disabled daughter, Duoduo, with love and care. Unlike her abusive biological family, Zeng Yumei treats Qingyan with warmth and respect, immediately forming a bond with her new daughter-in-law. Qingyan finds peace in the Xiao household, appreciating the cleanliness and order maintained by her mother-in-law. Meanwhile, Xiao Jinye returns from the mountains on his wedding day but refuses to consummate the marriage or even share a room with Qingyan, revealing to his mother that he loves another woman and cannot bear to be with someone he does not desire. The story concludes with Qingyan beginning her new life, unaware that her marriage to the cold hunter may not be the tragic end her family intended, but rather a fresh start away from toxicity.
