A young teacher in the first seventeen years of the People's Republic of China approaches the teaching of her students with a humanistic philosophy, which leads to problems with authorities.

It tells the story of the winter of 1948, when the final battle to liberate Northeast China began. Thousands of farmers in the northeastern liberated areas voluntarily joined the migrant workers' brigade and headed forward in heavy snow. Tian Yongtai, who was in his fifties, rushed to the front line to lift the wounded, but the village chief could not stop him. Before setting off, he was worried about paying public food, so he asked his youngest son to drive the sledge to pick up his second daughter-in-law. The eldest daughter-in-law had a lovely son. She rushed to deliver public food and asked the second daughter-in-law to hold the child at home. The two sisters-in-law had an argument and asked their father-in-law to write a letter to Tian Erhu who was on the front line.

Xiang Zi is a rickshaw boy who has always had a desire to excel and a thirst for freedom. He married Hu Niu who died of dystocia later. After her death, another girl, Xiao Fuzi, falls in love with Xiang Zi but they are separated by poverty. Xiang Zi works very hard in order to change his life, only to find that Xiao Fuzi is dead just as he begins to be hopeful for their future. Finally, Xiang Zi, an unflinching man, surrenders to that dark society.

Women play a heroic role in the Volunteer Army fighting the Japanese in the puppet state of Manchukuo.

In Beijing 1930s, a young woman is torn between her lover and her disabled husband.

With few other real options, when the young village woman in this story is offered an arranged marriage with a kindly but mildly retarded shopkeeper who lives in a nearby town, she readily accepts. Once she has settled into her new home, she becomes involved with her new husband’s patron, a man involved in some underworld trading activities.

Cuicui is raised by her 70-year-old grandfather. 17 years ago, Her mother was pregnant before marriage and she committed suicide after giving birth to Cuicui by drinking cold water in the river. When Cuicui grows up, her grandfather begins to worry about her marriage, because he doesn’t want Cuicui to have the miserable life like her mother.