Introduction:
In 1984, the spring breeze of reform and opening up blew through the mountains and fields, disrupting the tranquility of the mountain towns on the border of Fujian and Zhejiang. Some people are looking forward to opportunities, some are afraid of changes, some are panicking between the old and the new, and some are looking for a way out in the gaps between the times. The old teahouse at the entrance of the town has become the most secret ferry for people's hearts in the entire town. The shopkeeper, Lao Zhou, looks at the world with a cold eye and welcomes visitors from all over with a bowl of bitter tea.
A silent and introverted stranger came through the mist, and he was not alone - behind him were fifty-three ordinary country folk with their own thoughts and origins, forming the most special group of people in this mountain town. Among them are landless tea farmers, down-and-out craftsmen, workers left behind by the times, desperate farmers, drifters hiding their past, and some stubborn people who are unwilling to find a way out. Fifty-four people gathered under the tea house by chance. There was no oath or banner, but they formed a friendship of mutual dependence in the turbulent years, just like a small Water Margin in the world of fireworks.
With the deepening of reform and opening up, policy liberalization, the rise of business, the gradual separation of rich and poor, and the floating of people's hearts, the fate of the fifty-four people who once stayed together for warmth began to take different paths: they pulled, struggled, made choices, and became separated in the tide of the times. Some walked side by side, some parted ways, some turned against each other, and some silently guarded them. A bowl of bitter tea witnesses the changes in people's hearts, and a teahouse carries half a lifetime of entanglements. This is not a heroic legend, but the ups and downs of survival, friendship, interests and conscience of fifty-four ordinary people under the background of reform and opening up. It describes the hardship, tenacity, struggle and perseverance of little people in the era.
