Qinghong Gao Yuanyuan, a 19-year-old student, lives in a cramped apartment with her stern father, Wu Zemin Yao Anlian, her mother, and her younger brother. She longs for real love and a sense of independence, and she leans on her best friend, Xiao Zhen Wang Xueyang, who understands the pressure she faces from family and society. The world around her is shaped by the family’s move to rural Guiyang and a broader push to escape the past, a move Wu Zemin resents but cannot fully escape.
Wu Zemin is stubborn and aggressive, a man who has never forgiven his wife for steering the family toward Guiyang. He keeps up ties with other so-called “Third Line” volunteers and spends long hours discussing plans to return to Shanghai. His control over Qinghong grows sharper, often following her home from school to police her social life and choices. He forbids her from seeing her supposed boyfriend Honggen and discourages her from spending time with Xiao Zhen, easing the pressure only temporarily by restricting her movements even further after he discovers she sneaks out to attend an underground dance party.
Xiao Zhen, meanwhile, has her own evolving romance. She has fallen for Lu Jun, the son of another Third Line volunteer couple. When Lu Jun impregnates a local girl, pressure from his father forces him into marriage, but he soon runs away with Xiao Zhen, sending shockwaves through the community and heightening everyone’s anxieties about loyalty, duty, and the consequences of desire.
The delicate balance Qinghong attempts to maintain is brutally destabilized when Honggen, her would‑be boyfriend, begins to stalk her. One evening, as Qinghong promises to meet him in secret, she slips out while her father hosts a gathering with other Third Line friends to discuss a plan to flee to Shanghai without official permission. The moment Qinghong tells Honggen that they cannot be together because her family will soon leave, the situation spirals. Honggen loses control and rapes her. She staggers home, muddy and bleeding, while her father’s reaction shifts from anger to a cold, calculated response: he beats Honggen at his workplace and then reports him to the police, resulting in Honggen’s arrest.
Trauma reshapes Qinghong’s days as she battles fear, shame, and a sense of violation, ultimately driving her toward a suicide attempt. The emotional toll is heavy, and Xiao Zhen returns to Guiyang as a saddened and chastened figure, underscoring the personal cost of the family’s uncertain future. Very early one morning, the Wu family boards a van bound for Shanghai, hoping for escape and a new start. Their journey is complicated by the crowds that spill into the streets at dawn to witness public executions; loudspeakers announce the names of those to be executed, and Honggen’s name is the last to be called, a grim omen that lingers as the family’s vehicle threads its way through Guiyang’s waking city toward an uncertain horizon.
