Visitors take photos of each other at a peony garden near the Memorial Hall of Wenchuan Earthquake Epicenter in Yingxiu on May 1. [Photo by Zhang Zefeng/China Daily]

However, after the quake, "people were less concerned about their looks," she says.

Over almost 10 years there has been a huge reconstruction effort in Sichuan's worst-hit areas. In the three years after the quake, 19 wealthy provinces and municipalities dispatched more than 2,700 officials, 310,000 construction workers and nearly 30,000 doctors, teachers and other workers to Sichuan.

In June 2009, Yingxiu was being rebuilt from the ground up, and Li and other Yingxiu residents were resettled in Chengdu, Li's family going to the city of Dujiangyan in Chengdu.

She is thankful for the financial aid she received from the government, but says that she still had many worries.

"I wasn't well educated and didn't have much professional experience. I didn't know what kind of job I could get to support my family."

Her husband also wanted to divorce her, she says, and she started to constantly suffer from severe headaches and insomnia. She was later diagnosed with moderate depression and severe anxiety and received treatment.

In 2010 work on the new Yingxiu was all but completed, and Li and many other residents moved back there. She applied for an interest-free loan and bought a house at what she says was a moderate price.

With the help of 1.7 billion yuan the central and provincial governments have invested in Yingxiu, it has been transformed from a small industrial town into a tourist city.

Li received professional training organized by the local government and landed a job as a tourist guide in 2012. Among her duties as a guide, she interprets quake-themed tourist attractions and local cultural heritage.

Two years later she paid off her debt and married a middle-school teacher, and they had a son a year later. This year her sons have turned 12 and 3.

Today, Li says, she still suffers from minor depression, but knows how to manage it.

"The earthquake turned my life upside down in an unimaginable way, but it also taught me how to be strong and tolerant. I have made peace with it."