The Public Security Bureau intercept a telegram notifying foreign agents to retrieve the "110 secret". Shi Yan, head of the Reconnaissance Section, starts a campaign of counter-espionage, but one of his agents is soon killed on board a train.
At the age of 16 Zhou Lian, who lost her parents at the age of two and was raised by a stepmother, marries Jiang Mei, a progressive young man from Changsha No. 1 Normal School. Jiang Meiqing has also lost both of his parents. The couple has two sons, Liqun, Xiaoqing and daughter Xiaolian. The film follows the family through turbulent times from 1924 to 1930.
At a 1930s swimming match, a Chinese champion is forced to lose to his American rival. Later, the Chinese champion's son, another potential champion, is torn between the rigours of training and the lure of romance.
In a mountain hamlet in eastern China, a poor woman faces trial after trial. Sold into marriage as a child, she is left a young widow and enslaved by her mother-in-law, who sells her to a poor peasant. Her second marriage turns out to be happy until fate takes away her husband and son. Now seen as a bearer of bad luck, she becomes a social outcast.
During the War of Resistance Against Japan, a CCP army unit guarding the southwest border follows what is ostensibly a trading caravan and discovers that these traders are actually smuggling arms and spy equipment to Chiang Kai-shek and his American allies.
Old lady from the countryside travels to the bustling city of Xinjing to join her children in the "10th Anniversary Celebration of the Founding of Manchukuo", and then solves the problems of the children and conflicts within the family.
