Chen Youyu, the fifth daughter of a rural farming family in the 1980s and 1990s, witnesses the tragic lives of girls her age: Chen Li, a village girl who is sold and spends her life in captivity; Sun Shushu, a small-town girl whose youth is controlled; and Yan Jiao'er, a county-town girl whose life is swallowed up. Through repeated encounters with the darkness and ugliness of reality, Chen Youyu gradually realizes that she lives on a vast, merciless snowfield, and that every ordinary girl who grows up safe and sound is a survivor.
