The world was in a cold war in the late 1960s and early 1970s. After the Sino-Soviet Treasure Island conflict, Beijing teenager Qi Weizhi evacuated with his mother to Hanzhong City in the hinterland of the Qinling Mountains, and experienced a pure juvenile sexual maturity out of touch with the political atmosphere of that era. Hanzhong was China's third-tier town during the Cold War. Mother Qi Xiuxuan deliberately concealed her husband's death because of her husband's emotional betrayal, and was quite indifferent to her son. Qi Weizhi's missing mother's love was rewarded by class teacher Zhou Wenyao, so he had a subtle affection for Zhou Wenyao.

32-year-old designer Huanyu knows he is a woman born as a man and has a support system of transgender friends, doctors and his straight best friend/roommate. However sex reassignment surgery legally requires parental approval and Huanyu's pious Christian father sees this as a deadly sin.

Returning to his hometown as a village cadre, Lu Baotian is tasked with promoting land reform in Gangshang Village during the 40th anniversary of China’s Reform and Opening-Up. He faces strong resistance - not just from villagers, but from his own father, a respected elder who once led the village’s original land reform. As the community struggles between preserving tradition and embracing modernization, Baotian must find a new path forward through conflict, family ties, and shifting rural values.

Pan Xiao, a young lawyer, goes to a rural small village settled in the western desert lands of China to handle the case of a falcon poacher who has ran over a policeman. Pan wins the case through sophisticated reasoning and forces the poacher to give him his car as a reward. Then, he just drives back home, but the return will not be an easy one.