The story begins in the autumn of 1975, a year before the end of the Cultural Revolution, in Shaanxi province in China (the author's hometown). Shaoping Sun, an ordinary teenager from a village located on the Loess Plateau in northern Shaanxi, northwestern China, goes to the county of YuanXi to attend high school. His humble descent makes him shy and diffident. He falls in love with his classmate Hongmei Hao, a girl of upper-class descent. This is seen as problematic during the Cultural Revolution. Their relationship is revealed by their classmate Yuying Hou, and the abashed Hao has no choice but to end the liaison. She then quickly begins another relationship with her monitor, Yangmin Gu, a young man whose family is relatively better off than Sun's. After Sun's graduation from, he goes back home and becomes a teacher at the local village school and makes friends with Xiaoxia Tian, daughter of Fujun Tian, the vice president of the county's revolutionary committee.
