A social drama about a young student activist who hides from the authorities by working in a small mining town.

Seven-year-old girl Shin is sold off as a servant. She takes with her the 50-cent coin her grandmother gave her. However, at the master's house, Shin is accused of stealing the money and beaten. Shin escapes to mountains where she falls into a faint. Jin-ho, a student soldier, runs away from the army into mountains. He saves Shin and they live in the mountain where he teaches her how to read and fall in puppy love with each other. After the winter, Shin and Jin-ho go down the mountain. But they are discovered by soldiers who end up killing Jin-ho. Shin takes the harmonica that belonged to Jin-ho and goes home. When her father beats her and plans to sell her off again, Shin leaves in search of her mother. Shin finds her mother who is a kisaeng. Understanding that she can't stay, Shin leaves to become a servant. Learning that her grandmother is near death, Shin returns home and vows to overcome their poverty.

Yeong-ju, now an unwed mother working in a hospital, contracts TB. Her young child, now in the custody of her ex-lover, runs away from home and tries to find the remote island where his mother is living to be at her bedside.

Young-ju's wedding is cancelled when it is revealed that her mother was a prostitute for American soldiers. Young-ju, pregnant by her fiance, gives birth to a child, but her ex demands that she give up custody to him as she has no future.

Things backfire for young Cheol-hie when she convinces her father to go on a blind date with her kindergarten teacher. It turns out that her teacher is actually Cheol-hie's birth mother. While at first, Cheol-hie is excited at the possibility of her parents getting back together, it turns out that her mother/teacher has different wedding plans coming up in the near future.