A big city girl, Gu Xiaolin, visits a remote village in Poyang to find her ex-boyfriend, the son of dedicated rural teacher Miss Liu. It turns out she stopped teaching some time ago because her son passed away in an accident. The village head asks Gu to be a substitute teacher so that the very primitive village school can satisfy provincial requirements by having at least one teacher. Taking up teaching as a temporary job, Gu Xiaolin begins to understand her deceased boyfriend's sense of mission in working at this backward village.

Set in southern China during the Cultural Revolution, the film follows Jia Yimin, head of an Anti-Revisionist Hospital Revolutionary Committee, as he purges intellectual doctors and elevates politically favored but unqualified “young heroes.” He assigns Yao Yao, a cook with only days of veterinary training, to operate on a critical patient, resulting in a disastrous mistake. Though Yao Yao admits he is unfit and asks to return to the kitchen, Jia, driven by ambition, insists on remaking him into a “model doctor” and places him on another major case. When veteran surgeon Chang Chunlai is forced to step in and save the operation, Yao later causes another crisis by bringing the wrong medicine to the recovering patient, who falls into a coma. Faced with mounting consequences, Jia begins plotting his next move...