The scholar Zhang Yudan accidentally encounters Lu Feifei, the daughter of the District Magistrate Lord Lu, while she is out hunting, and instantly falls in love with her. Unexpectedly, Feifei dies a sudden death due to the heavy karma incurred from her excessive killing of animals. Lord Lu buries his daughter within the secluded temple where Zhang is staying to study. Note: This film is adapted from the chapter "The Daughter of Lord Lu" in "Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio".

An underground or unsanctioned picture from Beijing cinematographer Wu Di. A ballerina for the Beijing Dance Troop gains an opportunity to move to America. She attends an interview with a U.S Consulate officer to get the visa her fiancé, and is approved. Just as the plane is preparing to take off, the fiancé realizes that there will be nothing for him in America and that he might even become an impediment to his fiancé's success, so he wishes her luck and runs off the plane. The problem is; he now cant go home or he will lose face when people hear he was too afraid to go, so he fakes it, calling from Payphones located across from his family house in Beijing and pretending that he is calling from New York.

Xiao Dou is a shy and naive mailworker living in Beijing with his sister. When a coworker is fired for reading people's correspondences Xiao Dou takes over the same mail route. He soon finds himself indulging in the same curiosity, eventually developing an obsession. Xiao Dou chooses to spend time reading letters instead of socializing with friends or coworkers. As he becomes increasingly tied to the letters, he begins to intervene in the lives of those who write and receive the letters.

Niu Er is a peddler who provides for the widow Gan Cao and her mother and son. Gan Cao sews and cooks for Niu Er but is reluctant to get close to him, because she is in love with Ba Dun, a gambler.