Lin Xiaoyu, a social worker for 26 years, accidentally traveled to Peking in 1953 and became Lin Jianjun, a 15-year-old boy who lived in the front yard of the quadrangle.
The original owner's family is surrounded by walls, with frail parents and a pair of young siblings. Opposite is the calculating third uncle Yan Bugui. Surrounded by the first uncle's computer, the second uncle's official fans, Qin Huairu's shrewdness and Xu Damao's ruthlessness are hidden.
Lin Jianjun, who carries memories of the next sixty years or so, is well aware of the opportunities and traps of this era, and is even more aware of the tragic fate of everyone in the courtyard.
He rewrites his own destiny and also affects the trajectories of those around him - pulling Shazhu out of Qin Huairu's shackles, helping Yan Bugui put away his excessive shrewdness, preventing Xu Damao from committing evil and self-destruction, and accompanying Song Yaping through the stormy life.
