As participants and beneficiaries in the construction of beautiful rural countryside areas, peasant households can have an important impact on the performance of the new rural construction policies, their individual behaviors have become a much-studied topic in international rural studies. Starting from the concept of “put people first” and adopting the concept of a symbiotic system among peasant households, this study analyzes the elements, mechanisms, and operations of a peasant household symbiotic system in the process of rural settlement restructuring, taking Fengsi village in Chongqing, China as an example. Retaining traditional rural interpersonal relationship which takes lineal, collateral and terrain as the links, this study establishs a symbiotic relationship; that is, resources, benefits, and responsibility for environmental construction are shared. Accordingly, the spatial pattern developed into “the axis-line-distribution along the road”, which included one living-oriented functional group and three production-oriented functional groups. The one living-oriented functional group will be located at the junction of roads and rivers in the southeast of the village with three different types of peasant household, including the non-agricultural diversification type, the non-agricultural specialization type, and the part-time development type. The three production-oriented functional groups will situate along country roads in the middle and east of the village with three other different types of peasant household, including the agricultural diversification type, the agricultural specialization type, and the part-time development type. This study, therefore, provides theoretical support and methodological guidance for the construction of Chinese rural human settlements that are suitable for living in, convenient for employment, and pleasant to travel around. •Rapid rural transition has triggered rural settlement restructuring.•Analyzes rural settlements restructuring based on the symbiosis theory.•A mutualistic symbiotic relationship existed in rural.•Rural settlements should be restructured into two kinds of functional groups.•Promoting the rural development of “put people first”.