In hopes of getting her family out of poverty, 17-year-old Mai follows a neighbour's offer and leaves her small fishing village in Central Vietnam to work as a seamstress in Saigon, not knowing her neighbour had sold her into prostitution, and a grisly fate awaits her upon arrival.

For twenty years, Canh has lived in North Vietnam, unable to return to his home in the south where his wife is waiting for him. She is happy to reunite with her husband until she learns that he has married a young woman in the north and has a child by her. The love triangle becomes more complicated.

The valorous story of a battalion at the 1972 Second Battle of Quảng Trị, and the high-stakes negotiations leading to the Paris Peace Accords in 1973.