San mao (3 hairs) was a very popular Chinese comic strip first published in 1935-37, continued from 1948 into the 1990s, about a young orphan boy struggling with life in Shanghai.

The film tells the story of Zhang Yilin who, after marrying the bureaucrat Shi Zifan, attempted suicide because she could not bear the oppression of feudal morality. After liberation, she finally broke off the relationship and returned to her hometown to marry her sweetheart.