When people reach middle age, their lives have long been dulled by firewood, rice, oil and salt. An ordinary man named Fugui has a stable family, a wife and children, but his life is uneventful. A chance encounter while accompanying his child to a cram school led him to meet Xu Lanxin, who was also in a besieged city.
Two middle-aged people trapped in marriage comforted each other in the gaps of life where they were dissatisfied with their desires, quietly developed an affair, and started a secret entanglement that lasted for seven years. For seven years, they wandered on the edge of morality and desire, lusting after a moment of passion, indulging in secret pleasures, repeatedly pulled between family, responsibilities and personal relationships, hiding the loneliness, unwillingness and cowardice of middle-aged people.
This extramarital affair, which had long been exposed, eventually came to an end. After Xu Lanxin was discovered by her husband about their affair, she encountered extreme threats and was forced to leave everything behind and go into hiding. Eventually, she settled in Shanghai alone with her son. She met countless people and never gave up the pursuit of a freer life.
But Fugui, who started his betrayal, left his old life and went to the northern city to start a business and work hard, and established a foothold with his hard-earned career. He avoided the betrayal and debt of two trivial marriages, and finally found a docile and obedient local girl and gave birth to a daughter. He started a new life steadily without accommodation or compromise, but he could never forget the person who lived in his heart - Xu Lanxin.
In this broken relationship, there seems to be no absolute villain, but everyone is a loser. The world is extremely tolerant of successful men and extremely harsh on women who make mistakes. The unsolvable marital dilemma represents the coldest reality of middle-aged life.
Purpose: Focus on the marital dilemma of middle-aged people under siege, and tear apart the hypocrisy and realistic prejudice of secular marriage.