It is Beijing in the 1970s & Lai lives with her parents, grandmother & younger brother in a small flat in a working-class area. Her grandmother is a formidable figure, no-nonsense and uncompromising, but loving towards her granddaughter, while her ageing beauty of a mother snipes at her father, a sunken figure who has taken refuge in his work. As she grows up, Lai comes to discern the realities of the country she lives is: an early encounter with the police haunts her for years; her father makes her see that his quietness is a reaction to experiences he has lived through; and an old bookseller subtly introduces her to ideas and novels that open her mind to different perspectives. But she also goes through what anyone goes through when young, the ebbs and flows of friendships; troubles and rewards at home and at school; and the first steps and missteps in love. A gifted student, she is eventually given a scholarship to study at the prestigious Peking University; while there she meets new friends, and starts to get involved in the student protests that have been gathering speed. It is the late 1980s, and change is in the air.
