About the content of Eight Miles of Love and Enmity

Bali is a small town in southern Shaanxi. During this period, the characters had lingering grievances, and family affection, love, and hatred were entangled.

The article describes the unfortunate marriage of two extremely beautiful women. One is the girl Hehua, and the other is Bi Shuzhen, the lover of Hehua's father.

Hehua is one of the few junior high school graduates in the mountain village. Her father was imprisoned for making mistakes, her mother was seriously ill and had no money for medical treatment, and her brother was young and had no one to care for him. In desperation, she was deceived into using a 500-yuan betrothal gift to give to Qixing, a "hero" in Bali Village who was disabled due to burns while fighting a fire. However, Qixing's face was extremely ugly after being injured. His family was so poor that he had nothing, and the production team paid for his wedding. Such extremely beautiful and ugly people began their unfortunate married life. Hehua had been friends with her classmate Lin Xiang when they were in school, but this was the time of the Four Cleans-ups. Lin Sheng's father was knocked down as a cadre of the Four Cleans-ups, and his family was deprived of food and clothing, so there was no way to save Hehua.

Bi Shuzhen, the wife of Zuo Qingnong, the party secretary of Hehua’s village, is also the lover of Hehua’s father. Zuo Qingnong is a retired soldier. He sent Hehua's father, a postal worker, to prison on the grounds of sabotaging his military marriage, and he also sought revenge on Hehua. At that time, he was in charge of the commune canteen, so in the name of taking care of the heroes' families, he arranged Hehua to work in the canteen, and gave the canteen items to Hehua from time to time. At that time, the poor Hehua needed these things to support her disabled husband. In this way, Zuo Qingnong took the opportunity to possess Hehua, but Hehua knew nothing about his father. It wasn't until she met Bi Shuzhen unexpectedly one day that she learned the truth. Only then did she hate Zuo Qingnong even more.

Lin Sheng was persecuted in his hometown and went into exile. He unexpectedly met He Hua in Bali Village. In order to help Lin Sheng, Hehua asked Zuo Qingnong to arrange Lin Sheng to work in the cafeteria and live in her house temporarily. Although He Hua's husband Qixing was disabled and ugly, he was very kind-hearted. Seeing that he was dragging He Hua down, he asked her to remarry, but He Hua refused. When he saw Lin Sheng living in his house, he took the initiative to help them get married. Externally they still refer to each other as cousins. But this incident was discovered by Zuo Qingnong, who had ulterior motives, and he took advantage of the chaos of the Cultural Revolution to arrest and criticize Lin Sheng. Fortunately, he was rescued by Lin Sheng's friends, and Lin Sheng had to flee again.

Bi Shuzhen is an extremely cold woman. It’s true that my heart is as high as the sky and my destiny is as thin as paper. When she was a girl, she was deceived and raped by a work team captain, who later passed her on to soldier Zuo Qingnong. But she fell in love with the suave Hehua's father. During the relationship, a daughter was born. Zuo Qingnong recovered immediately after learning about it and brutally retaliated against her lover. As a result, she hated Zuo Qingnong even more and treated him with indifference. In the late period of the Cultural Revolution, she divorced Zuo Qiang, but Zuo Qiang left behind her daughter, so she had no choice but to marry far away.

The misfortune of the two unfortunate women did not end there, but continued to their descendants.

Bi Shuzhen's daughter fell in love with Hehua and Lin Sheng's son. In order to stop this love that disturbed the generations, Hehua went to Zuo Qingnong, but to no avail. The girl finally felt that there was something fishy about it, so she went to her mother to ask about the fate. Although it was painful and against her will, she withdrew from the impossible love. Qixing couldn't bear to see Hehua supporting the family alone, nor could he bear Hehua to be in trouble between him and Lin Sheng, so he committed suicide while Hehua was out. The son who didn't know the truth thought it was Lin Sheng who had done it, so he assassinated Lin Sheng out of hatred for his father's murder and lost love, and then committed suicide.