Both “Sealed Off” and Pu Song-Ling’s “The Wise Neighbor” are Chinese stories but they came out in very different times and the women in them have very different priorities yet they have similar realities to face: that their power and happiness rests on their Husband.  Mrs. Chu is a brilliant and ideal woman. She is described as “an exceptionally charming and pretty woman” (pg 776) and her husband loves her and she is shown to be witty and sharp as well. Yet none of that seems to matter unless she can keep her husband interested in her. Cuiyuan’s life seem’s to add up to the same thing. She is a good daughter, she has a good education, but she doesn’t live up to her family’s expectation because she hasn’t married a rich man yet. All the work she does is seem to be in hopes of finding herself a decent man but she isn’t happy with this. She wants something else from her life. She goes as far as to even try and subvert the roles that Mrs. Chu plays by. When talking to Zongzhen about any potential the two had together as a couple, the only suggestion seemed to be: become a concubine. Cuiyuan loves the idea of it because it is a way to get back at her family, to run away from the perfect life Mrs. Chu leads and throw it away entirely so that she can have her way as a person with her own choices. The life of Pao-tai, the concubine of Mrs. Chu’s husband, may not be as nice, but at least it would be hers.