Not surprisingly, the verdict of Huachi County upset everyone, but it was Peng'er who responded most impetuously. In both her 1982 memoir and my 2005 interview with her, Feng Zhiqin (aka Feng Peng'er; for her name change, see Chapter 7) confirmed that in spite of her bound feet, she walked about eighty li (about twenty-four miles) in two days to Qingyang, where the prefectural civic center was located, and met with Prefect Ma Xiwu. Ma listened to her petition and showed great sympathy. Ma defined Peng'er's case as an example of “feudal marriage” that should be eradicated. Ma then promised Peng'er that he would look at her case carefully and indeed visited Peng'er's village several days later. They met again when Peng'er was working under a mulberry tree, where Ma encountered her on his way into the village.

Superficially, Peng'er's story looks like a typical communist textbook case, in which a brave woman, guided by the communist idea of freedom of marriage, dared to challenge the old patriarchal authority and fight against an arranged marriage. As in the “Gold Flower Story,” in which a woman was liberated from an unhappy marriage and an abusive husband with the help of the CCP government, Peng'er's case was used by many communist authors as a persuasive example of how the CCP liberated women from traditional family and patriarchal oppression. It seems also to be a case that confirmed the May Fourth discourse about women resisting the oppression of the patriarchal family. On the other hand, although some American scholars since the 1980s have challenged the CCP's official version of its role in fighting for women's rights, this case also does not seem to support their hypothesis that the CCP sacrificed women's rights in exchange for male peasants’ support, as argued in the Introduction and Chapter 1.

In her 1982 memoir, Feng Zhiqin revealed the motive behind her appeal: she felt dreadful about the situation because as a result of the county's verdict, “my family members (qin ren 亲人) were put in jail and my good marriage was destroyed.” She never mentioned any resentment toward her father.

In the fall of 1944, Yuan Jing, a young female teacher from Longdong Middle School (Longdong zhongxue 陇东中学), was called to Yan'an for her political background check. While in Yan'an she read the article “Ma Xiwu's Way of Judging” and was deeply attracted to the story of the marriage dispute. She subsequently drafted a libretto based on this article and titled it Liu Qiao'er Goes to the Law (Liu Qiao'er gaozhuang). The libretto was immediately set to music by a group of young students who were lovers of local opera (Qinqiang 秦腔, Shaanxi opera) and staged in early 1945. In the following years, the opera was performed many times in Yan'an and its surrounding areas. Shortly after, a blind local troubadour named Han Qixiang (1915–89), who listened to someone recount the opera, created his own version of the story of Liu Qiao'er in ballad form and brought it to an even broader region of the SGNBR. Han not only changed the title to “Liu Qiao's Reunion” (Liu Qiao tuanyuan) but also modified the story with his own interpretations. This ballad, combined with Yuan's version, later became the foundation for a new opera and a film in the 1950s, which will be discussed in Chapter 7.

The appearance of these cultural products indicates that the case of Feng v. Zhang was not confined within legal realm as a “pure” legal issue, but extended to a broader social sphere for a new interpretation. Yuan Jing reshaped Peng'er's story into a cultural model of womanhood in the political and cultural environment of the 1940s’ SGNBR. The activities of Yuan and many other educated youth were the part of the CCP's cultural positioning project, as in Anyuan, helping the party to promote the idea of self-determination and to mobilize rural women for the marriage reform. Moreover, by using various forms of cultural products for the revolutionary purpose, the party also was able to attract a number of talented youth to cultural production. Thus this chapter also addresses how this model reflected the mentality of the educated youth of the post-May Fourth generation in viewing the relationship between family and state, and their identity in the revolutionary state.

In 1950 a Ping opera (Pingju 评剧) play entitled Liu Qiao'er 刘巧儿 was presented on Beijing's stages to accompany the promulgation of the revolutionary new Chinese Marriage Law. It tells the story of a young woman, Liu Qiao'er, who lives in the Chinese revolutionary base area in the 1940s and resists a marriage arranged by her father. As a child Qiao'er was engaged to the son of the Zhao family, but she refuses this engagement because it is not her will and she wants to find her own marriage mate. Liu Qiao'er falls in love with a handsome young man she encounters in a meeting. Later she learns that he is her former fiancé. During this time her father arranges another engagement with an old man, a rich landlord. Her former fiancé's family then comes to the Liu residence and kidnaps Qiao'er for marriage. The county judge punishes the Zhaos for the kidnapping and also annuls Qiao'er's marriage to her lover, her former fiancé. Qiao'er bravely appeals to a higher authority, Prefect Ma, who has a better understanding of the revolutionary principle of marriage and thus reverses the judgment. With the support of the revolutionary government, Qiao'er is able to marry the man of her choice, and the story concludes happily.

This opera was later performed on the national stage and then adapted into a 1956 musical film that was shown throughout China. It is no exaggeration to claim that Liu Qiao'er influenced generations of youth from the 1950s to the 1960s. The most famous arioso was on everyone's lips:

The arioso's melody and the story's image left a deep impression on my childhood memory because they were frequently presented at many celebratory occasions and workplace parties during the holidays. These artistic works not only created an image of Liu Qiao'er that encouraged women to fight against old marriage practices, but also promoted a new concept of “self-determination” (zizhu 自主) that inspired women to choose their own mate in marriage.

After receiving Peng'er's appeal, Prefect Ma visited her village. By conducting his own investigation among fellow villagers and cadres, Ma clarified several facts and made a new adjudication. First, his judgment condemned Feng Yangui for “selling” his daughter multiple times for profit as if she were livestock. The profit of seven thousand yuan (fabi) caili that Feng Yangui received from Zhu Shouchang was confiscated by the court; in addition, Feng was penalized with three months of labor service. Second, Ma denounced Zhang Jincai's way of dealing with the marriage dispute. He suggested that Zhang should have either made the utmost effort to persuade Feng or brought Feng to court. The kidnapping was wrong because it violated the law and disturbed the social order. As a result, Zhang Jincai was sentenced to two years and six months of prison time. All other participants in the kidnapping but Zhang Bo received sentences varying from half a year to several months. In the previous adjudication made by Huachi County court, Zhang Bo was also sentenced to some jail time for the kidnapping but the new adjudication changed it. Prefect Ma did not impose any penalty on him though he was the reason for the kidnapping and also actively participated in it; instead, Ma ratified his marriage with Peng'er without any penalty. The writ did not explain the reason why Zhang Bo escaped punishment, but it should be viewed in the context of the government trying to maintain a peaceful relationship with the village communities, as discussed in Chapter 5.

In Ma's adjudication, the most notable issue was his rationale for the approval of Peng'er and Zhang Bo's marriage. He explained that although the “marriage” (technically the engagement) was arranged by their parents in 1928, it was based on a widespread local custom (dangdi yiban shehui guanli 当地一般社会惯例). Most importantly and substantively, the adjudication continued, “however, both Peng'er and Zhang Bo have already consented for a long time (shuang fang zao yi tongyi 双方早已同意).