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.

In the 1990s, two girls and a boy enter a booming society with the hope of fulfilling their many dreams.