Marrying the right man and entering the right trade: how important are life's choices

This is the Yalu River basin in Linjiang City, Jilin Province, where fish resources are abundant. Every autumn is the best fishing period for fishermen along the river.

Reporter: "How long has the net been in the water?"

Fisherman: "It's been in all night."

Reporter: "Feels like there isn't a single fish."

Fisherman: "There are, there definitely will be, it's just a matter of more or less."

This net is seventy or eighty meters long and had been in the river water all night. By rights it should have caught one or two hundred jin of fish, but this haul was not much.

In mid-October 2015, several consecutive days of overcast rain caused the temperature to plummet. Most fish swam toward deeper waters, and the catch dropped sharply by more than half, which badly worried this woman named Lu Yaonan.

Lu Yaonan: "If there are still no fish, then I'll just pay more and you all set more nets."

Lu Yaonan now needs more than 3,000 jin of fresh fish every day. She found one of the few large nets on the Yalu River, fully more than 800 meters long. Just putting the net into the water takes one or two hours.

The temperature that day was below 10 degrees. Setting nets to catch fish in such cold weather left even experienced fishermen unsure.

Fisherman: "Pulling in the net takes 6 hours."

Reporter: "How many fish can you catch?"

Fisherman: "That's hard to say. At most, more than 10,000 jin, but now the weather has turned cold."

The fisherman's words made Lu Yaonan anxious and uneasy, and she insisted on waiting for the moment the net was pulled in.

Fisherman: "This haul is really quite a lot."

Reporter: "How is it today?

Lu Yaonan: "Not bad, but still not as much as the past two days. The past two days were two or three thousand jin. Then is that enough for you? If it's not enough, there's nothing to be done."

Reporter: "How much is this?"

Lu Yaonan: "Looks like it must be five or six hundred jin."

Now, the wild fish in the Yalu River tug at Lu Yaonan's heart. Recently, when the weather changed, she braved the cold wind by the river and personally came to the fishermen's homes to collect fish. Three years ago, Lu Yaonan ran a company with assets of nearly ten million yuan, sheltered from wind and rain. It was all because she fell in love with a man that her life took a sharp turn downward, and she was even gossiped about behind her back by many people.

Lu Yaonan: "At first everything was fine. When we first got married it was fine too, but life got worse and worse, worse and worse. Then friends would surely say, life, it's bitter, life, there's no way to talk about it, it's bitter, stop filming."

This is a shop on a busy section of Linjiang City, and Lu Yaonan is the boss here. One day in 2010, a middle-aged woman suddenly rushed in, and without a word grabbed Lu Yaonan and beat her.

Lu Yaonan's employee Zhang Lili: "Lu Yaonan was sitting there, and then she went straight for her, yanked her up, grabbed her hair, and slapped her several times."

Lu Yaonan: "At the time everyone was stunned, everyone was stunned, including me. At that moment, I burst into tears and said, what are you doing?"

Not only was she beaten, but right after that came a torrent of scolding.

Lu Yaonan: "Fool, little fool, how stupid are you? I'm beating you to wake you up, just wanting to wake me up, to let me know that life ahead will be even harsher than my beating you."

At the time, the shop was packed with onlookers, and Lu Yaonan instantly became the focus of neighborhood gossip.

Lu Yaonan: "After this happened, I disappeared from here for about a month. I basically didn't come to the shop. As soon as I came, I felt like the whole street was looking at me."

The one who made Lu Yaonan lose all face was her own aunt. As the saying goes, family shame should not be spread abroad. Why did her aunt beat her niece in public? It turned out this was all because Lu Yaonan had fallen in love with someone she should not have.

Lu Yaonan's mother Jiang Guizhen: "With our family's conditions, our girl had no need at all to look for that kind of man. But what can you do if she took a fancy to him."

Lu Yaonan was somewhat well known in Linjiang. She started a business right after graduating from university, and in five years built up nearly ten million yuan in family assets. During the interview, Lu Yaonan took the reporter to a place.

Lu Yaonan: "This is our family's treasure cave. Back then I built my fortune relying on it."

What surprised the reporter was that inside this door to wealth, there was actually a hidden world of its own.

Reporter: "So dark."

Lu Yaonan: "There's no electricity here. Slow down, be careful not to bump your head."

Reporter: "I can't even straighten my back."

Reporter: "How deep is this?"

Lu Yaonan: "It must be more than forty meters."

The cave is not wide, and a row of these jars is placed inside, so only one person can barely pass through.

Lu Yaonan: "It records my youth. I started making it in my twenties and kept at it until I was in my thirties,

The cave is very humid, and Yaonan's treasures are covered with water.

Lu Yaonan was born into a wealthy family, and her parents never let their daughter go without materially.

In 2002, Lu Yaonan graduated from university and, using 400,000 yuan in startup capital given by her father, founded this winery. According to local custom, every time wine is made, firecrackers must be set off to celebrate.

Lu Yaonan: "The wine is out. Let's pay respect to heaven, pay respect to earth."

Relying on a good market, Lu Yaonan's winery grew bigger and bigger. Accompanied by round after round of firecrackers, Lu Yaonan possessed wealth that made her peers envious, and her life could be called smooth sailing.

In the blink of an eye, Lu Yaonan reached twenty-seven or twenty-eight, and the appearance of a man named Old Fan made her quickly fall in love. From then on, Lu Yaonan's household was constantly troubled, and her life took a sharp turn downward.

Mother: "I just disliked that he had been married and had a child. Whether he was ugly or not, I didn't care whether he was ugly or handsome, as long as Lu Yaonan liked him. The key thing is that he has a child. I don't want my child to be a stepmother. Being a stepmother is very hard."

This is him, Old Fan. He had once had a failed marriage, and at the time had neither savings nor a house. With such conditions, being able to win Lu Yaonan made everyone think he must have gone to great lengths, but Lu Yaonan told the reporter that actually four small dishes were enough to win her over.

At the time, Lu Yaonan was busy with her career. Apart from entertaining at dinner tables, she practically lived on instant noodles. One day, Old Fan happened to catch Lu Yaonan eating instant noodles.

Lu Yaonan: "How can you eat like this? I said my conditions are pretty good, I even put an egg in here. He took a look, came back after a trip to the grocery store, made four small dishes, and had a meal with me in the evening. At that moment, for the first time, I felt that two people eating together could actually have four dishes. I felt this kind of life had never existed for me. I basically didn't have much of a family-style life. My parents were also very busy before and had no time to cook for me."