During the Japanese evacuation from China in 1945, a poor and ill mother leaves her child to her Chinese sister-in-law. Years later, she returns to China to find her child.

Law student Yan Wengang, haunted by his zealotry during the Cultural Revolution, interns with comrades Wei Zekuan and Xia Chengyuan in the southern city of Wuzhou. When Yan defends defendant Zhao Dawei in a murder-robbery trial, he uncovers split opinions at court and, with Dean Wang and juror Li Mang’s help, secures evidence of Zhao’s innocence, only for Zhao to falsely confess. Disillusioned classmates make different career choices; Yan, undeterred, returns to Wuzhou to reopen Zhao’s case and finally fight for true justice.

In the summer of 1983, a provincial capital in the north. During ten years of turmoil, Ding Peng, the guard of Gao Changhe, former Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, who was sent to labor reform in Xinjiang on suspicion of murder, was released after serving his sentence.

Wang Shou, a famous magician, is suspected of having stolen two historical figurines in a museum.