In 1938, the raging Xiushui River destroyed Li Dehou's family's house and their savings hidden underground. Two fates intersect here on the way to escape: Li Yinbao, the youngest daughter of a landlord, and Huang Jixiang, a young man who has a family feud and lives in hiding. They form a lifelong bond over a bowl of hot porridge in an adobe courtyard in Yanglin Town.
Fireworks rise and fall, but fate repeatedly opens the wound. The couple lost two young sons one after another, and finally welcomed seven daughters, nicknamed the "Seven Fairies" by others. However, the fifth daughter Huang Xiulian, who was smart and loved to read, was killed by acute appendicitis at the age of ten, leaving only a blue canvas schoolbag sewn by her mother and embroidered with white lotus flowers, which became an unhealable scar in the hearts of the whole family.
The years are rolling forward, and the wave of the times is sweeping through the small town. The eldest sister married in the provincial capital, the second sister stayed in her hometown, the third sister resolutely went south to Shenzhen, the fourth sister went to Yunnan to make a living and came back in embarrassment, the sixth sister encountered the desperate situation of her husband being wrongly imprisoned, and the seventh sister took root in a small town and lived an ordinary life. The six sisters went their separate ways, but always stayed close to each other. The adobe house of our ancestors has weathered many times, and in the corner of the main room, the memorial tablet of the fifth sister and the faded blue school bag have been preserved from generation to generation.
The old ones are passing away one after another, and the younger generations are growing up slowly. Suffering has not spared this family by the water. Floods, partings, illnesses, and injustices have come in turn, but blood and family ties have supported every fall. The Xiushui River flows day and night, hiding the secrets of joy and sorrow for generations. What kind of obsession does that faded blue schoolbag carry? Can this big family keep their own home in the tide of the times? A family tragedy rooted in the countryside, it tells the story of life, pain, love and perseverance of ordinary people.
