The Everyday Life of Growing Rich in the Nineties, Filled with Everyday Warmth

Ensemble cast + family and neighborhood life + getting rich through demolition

In 1998, Zhao Xiaoyun had just turned twenty. Her greatest pleasure was sitting at the mouth of the alley, munching on chilled watermelon while listening to the neighborhood aunties gossip about everyday family matters and whisper about whose husband had snuck off to the video hall again. Every day, Zhao Xiaoyun was caught up in one bit of gossip after another...

Her peaceful life was shattered by the news that the old alleys where both families lived were slated for demolition... Rumors of overnight riches spread like wildfire through the neighborhood.

A few years later, the houses in both families’ hometowns were also slated for demolition...

Zhao Xiaoyun was about to go see what all the fuss was about when one sentence from her father left her stunned. It turned out the secret recipe passed down through the Zhao family had been stolen from the Chen family years ago.

From then on, Zhao Xiaoyun’s life changed completely. She watched Chen Mo use his demolition payout to buy houses and land all over the place, even purchasing the Zhao family’s old courtyard house, supposedly to expand his business. This calculating man was always finding excuses to get close to her, and at night he would secretly try to hold her hand.

Chen Mo clearly didn’t care about the secret recipe, yet he pretended to be clueless just to tease her. He would often hold a watermelon and look at her with a half-smile. “Xiaoyun, I hear your family’s medicinal formula belongs to mine. When are you going to return it? Or are you planning to repay me by marrying me?”

To protect the Zhao family’s reputation for the formula and uncover the tangled disputes between their families’ older generations, Zhao Xiaoyun had no choice but to grit her teeth and play along.

There’s no reborn comeback or heaven-defying golden finger, just a bickering couple dealing with relatives and neighbors who love a good spectacle amid the lively, down-to-earth atmosphere of the 1990s. As they unravel old secrets and build their family fortunes, they slowly fall for each other.