This is a family and city epic spanning more than half a century. A young boy came out of Jiaxing, walked into a Shanghai alley with a small bag, and grew up as a reporter amidst ink and fashion; his encounter with two women in fate - Lu Qinglan from a silk merchant's family and Ye Conongrong from a cotton mill - were entangled, scattered, and reunited in the huge waves of the times. City gates opened and closed, flags changed, wars, inflation, reconstruction and reforms changed their behavior and character again and again. Love and betrayal, ideals and perseverance, rise and fall on this long river. Some people choose to travel far, some people stick to where they are; some people build an invisible bridge in their hearts. In the end, when they looked back at the old alleyways, the demolished bricks and tiles of the walls, and the smoke-stained typesetting racks in the newspaper office, they realized that the so-called grandeur was just taking care of a lamp, a table, a dedicated study, and a destiny every day. In the long river of the world, loss and gain appear alternately. People live like stones by the river, which will one day be rounded by the water.
