In the 1950s, a 19-year-old farmer from Chongqing named Liu Guojiang fell in love with Xu Zhaoqing, a widow 10 years his senior. To escape the gossip and judgment of their community, the couple retreated to a remote mountain forest to build their home. Liu Guojiang spent his entire life carving over 6,000 stone steps into the cliffside to ensure his beloved’s safety. In 2006, a company in Chongqing installed a dedicated cable for this modern-day “Condor Heroes” couple, finally bringing light to the “Love Ladder” after half a century.
A love story revealed
According to the Chongqing Evening News, the elderly couple, with deeply wrinkled faces and no teeth left, were in good spirits. The wife affectionately called her husband “young man,” while he called her “old lady.” Due to their long isolation, they could barely understand the language of the outside world. With the help of local translators, they slowly recounted their extraordinary love story. They said they didn’t understand concepts like “dating” or “romance“; they only knew that “a couple should be united and affectionate.”
Liu Guojiang and Xu Zhaoqing’s mountain home is more than 30 kilometers south of Zhongshan Town in the southern part of Jiangjin, Chongqing, which people rarely visit. In the Mid-Autumn Festival of 2001, an outdoor adventure team from Yuanyang Town in Yubei District accidentally discovered the stone steps Liu had built while exploring the ancient forest. They brought this beautiful love story down the mountain and named the steps the “Love Ladder,” causing a sensation across China.
The arduous climb
Most of the stone steps Liu carved were on sheer cliffs, with paths less than a foot wide. Some sections were nearly vertical, with the steps almost touching one’s nose as they climbed. These steps were embedded in the rock, extending vertically into the mist. Liu Guojiang also meticulously carved small handholds into the cliff. The steps were covered with anti-slip sand, and the handholds, known as “hand grips,” were carefully chiseled by Liu.
The steps led to the mountaintop, where a vegetable garden surrounded a low mud-walled house, and chickens roamed leisurely. This was the love sanctuary Liu and Xu created, living a primitive lifestyle away from modern civilization.
Love at first sight
On a day in June 1942, 16-year-old Xu Zhaoqing married into the Wu family in Gaotan Village, Changle Township (now Changle Village). Six-year-old Liu Guojiang, living at the village entrance, followed the bridal procession to the Wu family, mesmerized by the beautiful bride. “What are you staring at? When you grow up, you’ll find a pretty wife like her,” joked the older woman. From then on, whenever villagers asked Liu what kind of wife he wanted, he would earnestly say: “Someone like Aunt Xu.”
Ten years later, Xu Zhaoqing’s husband died of acute meningitis, leaving her a widow with four young children. She struggled to survive, often foraging for wild mushrooms to eat, unable to afford even three cents for a pound of salt. Sixteen-year-old Liu Guojiang saw all this.
Liu often helped Xu with heavy chores and developed a special bond over four years. Gossip quickly spread through the village, with many advising Liu not to waste his life on a widow. Xu’s mother-in-law was particularly displeased.
A bold decision
In August 1956, Liu told Xu: “I want to marry you!” Looking at the man, who was ten years her junior, and her four children, Xu cried and shook her head. Liu insisted: “I’m serious.” The following day, villagers discovered Xu and her children, along with 19-year-old Liu, were gone. They had moved to a place Liu knew from gathering firewood, where two abandoned thatched huts stood.
From then on, Liu and Xu’s companions were their children, the sky, the mountains, ancient trees, and wild monkeys, but no gossip. They later had four more children, raising seven on wild vegetables and animal meat. Now, they even have great-grandchildren.
Occasionally, they would descend the mountain, walking over four hours to the nearest market to buy piglets and road repair tools or take their children to school. The path to the village was a thorny trail, which they had originally used to climb the mountain.
Building the Love Ladder
Liu began carving the “Love Ladder” from the year they moved up the mountain to prevent his wife from falling. Liu had aged, wearing out over 20 iron chisels in the process. Xu, touching the calluses on Liu’s hands, wept, saying: “I feel for him, but he always says: ‘Once the road is built, it’ll be easier for me to go down the mountain.’ In reality, I hardly ever left the mountain.”
Due to their remote location and sparse population, the couple’s home needed electricity. In 2006, the Jiangjin Power Supply Company decided to install power lines for the couple, illuminating their “Love Ladder.” Liu Guojiang passed away in 2007 from a cerebral hemorrhage at the age of 72.
After his death, villagers carried him down the mountain to his son’s home, with Xu following, marking their last journey together on the 6,000-step “Love Ladder.” Xu lived alone for five more years, passing away in 2012 at 87. Thus, the “Love Ladder” creators left behind a touching love story for future generations.
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