Ziyue Zhao

Qing Yao is a botanist. She bumps into Zhang Gaixiu, a taxi driver. First they hate each other and gradually they understand each other and later help each other.

Xiang Zi is a rickshaw boy who has always had a desire to excel and a thirst for freedom. He married Hu Niu who died of dystocia later. After her death, another girl, Xiao Fuzi, falls in love with Xiang Zi but they are separated by poverty. Xiang Zi works very hard in order to change his life, only to find that Xiao Fuzi is dead just as he begins to be hopeful for their future. Finally, Xiang Zi, an unflinching man, surrenders to that dark society.

In 1980, Xu Jingshan, a wealthy Chinese-American businessman returns to China to find his son, Xu Lingjun, whom he had abandoned over 30 years earlier. Labeled a rightist because of his capitalist father, Lingjun has been forced to live as a humble herdsman on the grasslands. His bitter life has been transformed by a happy marriage to the wise and beautiful Xiuzhi, and more recently by his rehabilitation by the Party. When he goes to Beijing for their reunion, he discovers his father wants him to work for his chemical company in San Francisco. Lingjun tells the story of his life to his father, as he ponders his future.

Set in 1953, spies plan to set off a explosion on the National Day.