Suk-hee's mother is remarried to a man who has a son a year senior than Suk-hee. The two don't get along well first, but soon they grow intimate. Suk-hee learns, though, that she needs to give up her love for her mother's happiness. One day she leaves her mother and her new family, and goes on her way to her hometown, where she sees a Zelkova tree.

A Japanese fine art teacher helps a Korean independence fighter to escape from a threat of being arrested by the Japanese police. The Korean man introduces him a gisaeng (Koran geisha) who learned Korean traditional court dance and he falls in love with her. However she hates Japanese because her parents were killed in the war.

President Choi of Dongseo Shipping is at the verge of bankruptcy because one of his ships has sunk. Right on time, a man comes to Choi and offers to lend money by taking his remaining real estates as security and staying at his place. The man turns out to be a son that Choi has abandoned. The mother has died after living a hard life, and he wants revenge.

After her father, failed at stock investment and was shocked to death, a girl enters a textile factory and supports her family. But living on her small salary and repaying her father's debt is too difficult for her. In the end, she tries to kill herself together with her young brother. But only her brother dies, and she, who survives, stands at the bar guilty of patricide. She deserves the death penalty, but the court takes into consideration her circumstances and is generous enough to open up a new road for her to start again. A real-life story.

Suk-jin, a naive Young woman lives on her own in Seoul. When her brother dies following a car accident, she finds out he had been having an affair with the wife of a businessman.