4 ideas
The county court rules the divorce legally valid, and she spends two decades petitioning from county to city to Beijing, at one point reaching the National People's Congress and triggering the dismissal of several officials. Her case ends with no resolution when Qin Yuhe dies in an accident, leaving her grievance with no object.
When officials are judged on whether petitioners reach higher authorities, not on whether grievances are resolved, the rational response is to contain the complainant through interception, surveillance and placating visits. Each level passes the problem upward or suppresses it. A trivial dispute then grows into a career-ending liability, because nobody is rewarded for fixing the original wrong.
Each judge and official applies the rules correctly to the documents in front of them: a signed divorce certificate is a valid divorce. The system can therefore be procedurally right at every level while producing an outcome everyone privately sees as unjust. It has no place to register intent or truth that contradicts the paperwork.
A dispute that starts over a concrete interest, such as a flat or a marriage, turns into a fight over reputation once the complainant is publicly shamed. Li Xuelian's goal becomes clearing her name, and she pursues a paradox: proving the divorce was false so she can divorce him properly. Institutions built to settle claims over property and procedure cannot settle a claim about dignity, so the grievance becomes permanent and becomes part of who she is.