A kind-hearted village girl attempts to raise a child whose father was taken as a political prisoner.

A married village worker teams up with an old girlfriend to try to dig a well for his water-starved village. The well collapses and they are trapped. Their enforced confinement leads to them exploring their feelings for each other and those around them.

In a mountain hamlet in eastern China, a poor woman faces trial after trial. Sold into marriage as a child, she is left a young widow and enslaved by her mother-in-law, who sells her to a poor peasant. Her second marriage turns out to be happy until fate takes away her husband and son. Now seen as a bearer of bad luck, she becomes a social outcast.

When the villagers in Qingshuilian village along the Xiaoli River in northern Shaanxi have to evacuate to intruding forces of Hu Zongnan, only a stubborn grandfather is left behind.

In 1920s China, 19-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.