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Yu Hong leaves her home village and starts university in Beijing, where she develops a consuming and compulsive relationship with another student. The student riots from 1989 then ensue and take a toll on their lives.

The daughter of a right-winger, schoolgirl Jing Qiu is sent to the countryside for reeducation, and tasked to help write a textbook. There she meets Lao San, a young soldier with a bright future ahead. Despite the class divide and parental disapproval, romance blooms against turbulent times.

Trying to put her life back together after the death of her husband, Libby and her children move to her estranged Aunt's goat farm in central Texas.

The life of Tao, and those close to her, is explored in three different time periods: 1999, 2014, and 2025.