Sold into a ghost marriage? Four-year-old and his thuggish father go on a killing spree.

"Comrades! Let me introduce a new comrade!"

In the educated youth settlement of Chengjiawan Brigade, the brigade leader Cheng Tiezhu walked in with a young girl.

"This is Comrade Su Xueqing, she's from the provincial capital. From now on, she'll be settling down in Chengjiawan with everyone! Let's help each other and make progress together!"

The men and women at the educated youth settlement all looked up curiously at this new "city person".

When they saw Su Xueqing's appearance clearly, many people let out a quiet gasp of surprise.

beautiful.

Not the kind of healthy beauty found in country girls.

Rather, it is a kind of bookish, delicate, and fragile beauty.

Her skin was as white as porcelain, her eyebrows and eyes were curved, and when she smiled, there were two shallow dimples at the corners of her mouth.

She was wearing faded blue overalls, but that couldn't hide her unique charm.

Chen Zhiyuan was also stunned.

He felt that this girl named Su Xueqing looked familiar, as if he had seen her somewhere before.

Su Xueqing greeted everyone with grace and poise, her voice gentle and melodious.

She was assigned to an empty bed in the girls' dormitory.

From that day on, the educated youth settlement in Chengjiawan gained a beautiful new feature.

Soon, everyone discovered Su Xueqing's special qualities.

She was different from everyone else.

In those days, the educated youth who were sent down to the countryside, more or less, carried a sense of resentment and confusion.

They dawdle at work during the day and gather together at night.

They either complained about the poor food or lamented the hopelessness of the future.

Su Xueqing, however, never did.

She gets up before dawn every day and goes to work in the fields with the other women in the production brigade.

She volunteered to do all the dirty and tiring work, from weeding and harvesting wheat to planting rice seedlings.

He never complained or said he was tired.

Although her movements were clumsy and she was not very strong, her earnestness was so impressive that even the most discerning old farmer in the village could not find fault with her.

In the evenings, the other educated youth would play cards, chat, or write letters home to complain.

She always kept a dim oil lamp lit and sat quietly by the window reading.

She didn't talk much, always had a faint smile on her face, and was polite yet distant in her interactions with others.

It was as if her body had come to this impoverished village, but her soul still lived in another world that no one could reach.

Gu Niannian quickly became acquainted with Su Xueqing.

After parting ways at the noodle shop that day, Gu Niannian kept thinking about this "fairy auntie".

When she heard that Su Xueqing had been assigned to the educated youth settlement in Chengjiawan, she was so happy she almost jumped for joy.

Every day after school, she would run to the educated youth settlement to find Su Xueqing.

Su Xueqing also liked this smart and quiet little girl very much.

She would lend Gu Niannian the few books she had brought from the city.

Those books were ones that Gu Niannian had never seen before.

There were Tang poems, Song lyrics, and even an English book filled with tadpole-like characters that she couldn't understand at all.

Su Xueqing would patiently teach her to read the poems, line by line.

"Two orioles sing in the green willows, a line of egrets soars into the blue sky."

Her voice, like a clear mountain spring, tinkled and brought those originally dry words to life.

She would also teach Gu Niannian to sing some popular songs from the city.

"Let's row our oars, and our little boat will push through the waves..."

She would even point to the letters in the English book and teach Gu Niannian to pronounce them one by one.

"A, B, C, D..."

Gu Niannian was like a dried-up sponge, frantically absorbing this new knowledge.

She discovered that Aunt Su Xueqing was simply a treasure trove of knowledge.

No matter how tricky or strange the questions she asked, Su Xueqing could explain them to her clearly in the simplest and most understandable language.

Chen Zhiyuan and Su Xueqing had talked a few times.

The more they talked, the more alarmed he became.

He discovered that this woman's knowledge far exceeded that of an average high school graduate.

She can recite long passages of Shakespeare's sonnets fluently.

She can easily solve difficult calculus problems in university-level mathematics.

Her insights into current affairs and politics were so profound that even he, a top student who graduated from the Chinese Literature Department of a university, felt inferior to her.

However, she never showed off.

She was always so humble and low-key, carefully concealing all her sharpness.

This made Chen Zhiyuan even more confused.

How could a woman with such talent and knowledge be sent down to such a remote village?

That evening, Gu Niannian came to see Su Xueqing again.

Looking at Su Xueqing diligently preparing her lesson under the lamp, she couldn't help but ask the question that had been lingering in her heart for a long time.

"Aunt Su, why... are you never sad?"

"You came all the way from such a nice provincial capital to this backwater village where we have nothing. Don't you... miss home?"

The light from the oil lamp cast a soft glow on Su Xueqing's face.

The pen in her hand paused for a moment.

After a while, she raised her head and looked at Gu Niannian. For the first time, her eyes, which were always smiling, revealed a deep and indescribable sadness.

She remained silent for a very long time.

It went on for so long that Gu Niannian thought she wouldn't answer anymore.

She then let out a soft sigh.

"think."

It was just one word, yet it seemed to contain a thousand words.

"But, Nian Nian."

Su Xueqing reached out and gently stroked Gu Niannian's hair.

"There are many things in this world that we cannot choose or change."

"When these things happen, what can we do?"

It's not complaining, it's not wallowing in despair.

"Instead, we must learn to live well, with all our might, wherever we are."

Gu Niannian looked at the sadness in Su Xueqing's eyes and nodded as if she understood.

She had a vague feeling that Aunt Su Xueqing must be carrying a very heavy, very heavy story.

When the commune cadres came to register the household registration files, Gu Niannian secretly went to take a look.

In Su Xueqing's file, the section on family background simply stated six words: "Ordinary cadre family".

However, her extraordinary temperament and knowledge, and her unusual calmness and resilience in the face of hardship.

Everything is telling a story.

Her background is definitely not as "ordinary" as those six words suggest.

Who exactly is Su Xueqing?

Why did she come to Chengjiawan?

What thrilling secrets are hidden in her seemingly peaceful past?

The answers to all of this remain buried in the mists of time.

But Gu Niannian had a strong premonition.

The day these secrets are revealed will not only change Su Xueqing's fate, but will also lead her and her father to a completely unpredictable future.