In a small pharmaceutical factory in southern Yangtze River, Xu Lisa, a college graduate, works as a bottle washer due to her bourgeois origin. The new section chief, Zhu Shiyi, falls in love with her and pursues her. Lisa, seeking warmth and happiness, accepts his advances. However, life after marriage is not as idyllic. Zhu Shiyi, a commoner, is calculating, and his bitter mother, a market vendor, traps Lisa in a dreary existence.
Xiao Xiao is sold into arranged marriage with a 2 year old boy, who she must raise as his nanny until he is old enough to marry her. She is expected to honour tradition and to toe the line so far as social proprieties are concerned, but the young girl rebels against the edicts of her elders until at 16, she falls in love with another man.
A portrait of a woman, more intelligent and more ambitious than her husband, who must fight to break with village morality by choosing to have an abortion.