There was once this poor village family with four kids. The oldest son was a gambler and the oldest fifteen years old daughter was made to do all the backbreaking work in that family, so she was terribly thin and black skinned (sunburned, read: ugly by Chinese standards). The gambler sold his own sister to a s*ave trader to pay his gambling debt. Then she was immediately resold to a brothel from which she tried to escape, was captured two days later and beaten to death by the brothel servants.

The FL, a recent university graduate, transmigrated at that very moment of the OG being terribly beaten to death. The ML was passing by, saw her bewildered eyes and mutilated emaciated body and felt something. So he bought her, he bought himself a wife! From a brothel owner! That would be a huge problem later on, because after hiding that fact for a while his mom will know about it along with the entire village that he married "a prostitute".

Thus their family life begins, a little family of three. The ML, his mom and the FL. They are the poorest family in their village. The FL does not intend to be his wife, the ML does not touch her against her will either, they have separate bedrooms. Being grateful for the rescue, she wants to improve her looks (read: fatten up and whiten her skin), make some money to give to that poor mother and son and leave.

So, she starts by improving his selling strategies for his wares (wooden bowls, spoons, etc.), improves their design, starts selling whitening mud masks in cute wooden jars to make money, etc. She eventually leaves that family to go to work as an architect for a wealthy client, leaving a note and 500 taels to the ML.

But by that point in time both are deeply in love with each other...

And soon they will get back together for real and have a life.

Someone posted in their reviews that the mother in law is terrible. Well, initially, she is more dumb than terrible, but she is actually good and will be a wonderful MIL later on. Terrible is the original owner's birth family who will find the FL once she becomes well off to suck her dry. They are really bad people. All of them.

Another reviewer criticised the ML for being useless. Initially, he is a fatherless young man from the poorest family. He has no education, no land, no skills except for making plain handmade wooden bowls. No one in ten miles and eight villages wants to marry him despite him being the best looking guy with a good character. As soon as he gets together with the FL, he begins to learn from her at the lightning speed, everything, from beautiful woodworking and wood sculpting to business skills, to martial arts skills to protect her, everything. He grows into a wonderful man.

The story is well written, four stars level for sure, I gave it five stars to correct its rating a bit, and the focus is on the marriage but it has a lot of emphasis on rivalry as well (another woman crazily wants to marry the now wealthy ML even as his second wife) or who marries whom and how easy or difficult it gets among other characters in that novel.

The title "Beautiful, Farming" is more than a bit misleading. The FL was beautiful in our modern world, she isn't in the ancient world. Although she does whiten her skin with cucumber slices and tomato juices to the point that amazes everyone. And she does no farming, although she buys land for that mother and son, a couple of acres for family's vegetables and the rest of the land to rent out to other peasants for passive income. She does not farm herself at all. She spends her time knitting shoes, sweaters, scarves, etc. which is a novelty in that era and coming up with ideas for novel businesses for other people of which she takes a % of earnings.

So, this is not really a farmer's romance if you were looking for one, but they do live in a village for at least half of the novel.