Jiang Xinghua has been widowed for two years. Her in-laws despise her for giving birth to four “money-losing girls,” and the whole village is waiting to see whether she remarries or starves to death.
But she refuses to give in.
The eldest is ten and can do abacus calculations so fast, he makes the peddlers cry. The second is eight and has a nose sharper than a dog's for anyone in the village scheming against his mom. The third is six, a social butterfly with a silver tongue and quick feet who can win over anyone from three to eighty. The fourth is three, with an angel's face; one cry from her can melt even the hardest heart.
Her in-laws come to snatch the children? The youngest three team up to put on a sob story, humiliating Grandma in front of everyone. Competitors try to squeeze out her braised-food stall? One attracts customers, one handles the accounts, and one digs up dirt, turning the tables against all odds. The village spreads rumors that she's “seducing the teacher”? The four kids launch a three-pronged counterattack, making the rumors backfire and, along the way, pushing the gentle, refined Teacher Zhao right into her arms.
The four kids join forces to make money, protect their mom, and take down their rotten relatives. They turn the whole village upside down, but somehow transform its poorest family into the richest in town.
Meanwhile, the gentle Teacher Zhao from town starts making frequent visits to tutor the eldest.
The four kids secretly hold a “New Daddy Selection Contest” behind their mom's back.
When Zhao Baizhou is interviewed by the four kids for the first time, the second asks, “How much do you make a month? Can you afford to support all five of us?”
Jiang Xinghua: “...I don't need a man.”
The four kids, in unison: “But Mom, he's handsome.”
