Lancheng, enveloped in autumn smoke, hides the struggles of two young men. 17-Year-old Lin Jinyuan is the "school bully" of Lancheng No. 1 Middle School. He has a hard fist but a soft heart. He always stands up for his classmates who are being bullied. The drunkard father at home doesn't care, so he earns tuition by working at a barbecue stall. The idea of going out of the mountains is hidden in his textbooks, but he is always overwhelmed by the pressure of life.
16-Year-old Ruan Qingye is a problem student "exiled" from the city. She was once a top student, but after her mother passed away and her father reorganized the family, she completely changed. She drank, smoked, and talked back to teachers. She dropped out of school after being marked as a senior and was thrown into her grandma's house in the countryside. The white skirt looked out of place in the soot. She wrapped herself tightly in rebellion, like a cat with spikes.
Two angular teenagers met by chance in front of a barbecue stall. One helped her drive away the harasser, and the other handed him a warm drink after he was beaten and scolded by his father. Sitting next to each other in class and accompanying each other on the river bank, they can see their own shadows in each other's dejection. He taught her how not to be bullied, and she helped him pick up the scattered textbooks; he took her fishing to relax, and she mended the holes in his schoolbag.
In the small town filled with soot, they became each other's light. Ruan Qingye, who had given up on himself, opened the textbook again, and Lin Jinyuan, who always fought, began to chew on the exercise book. The lights of the morning reading class, the chirping of cicadas during evening self-study, and the fireworks at the barbecue stall witnessed the two teenagers pulling each other to climb up.
In the end, they stood on the top of the mountain with the college admission notice in hand, with the soot gradually fading behind them, and in front of them was a vast world they had never seen before. The scars worn out by life have become medals of redemption for each other.
