A young teacher in the first seventeen years of the People's Republic of China approaches the teaching of her students with a humanistic philosophy, which leads to problems with authorities.
Sha Ou is a volleyball player and works hard against her injuries resulting from training. In spite of her defeat in an international competition and the the death of her boyfriend, she insists on her training.
During the Japanese evacuation from China in 1945, a poor and ill mother leaves her child to her Chinese sister-in-law. Years later, she returns to China to find her child.
Tian Geng suffers from liver cancer and is told he has less than three months to live. A former lover takes care of him at the hospital, but he is unconsolable. However, his outlook changes when he meets a girl at hospital who lost her leg to disease at a young age and is in danger of losing her...
During a brutal Japanese offensive, a skirmish leaves only a handful of children and a few soldiers to carry an important command west along the Great Wall.
