In the early years of the Republic of China, Yu Ping, the concubine of Gu Yuan in Suzhou, gave birth to a posthumous son, Ling Chen. This child was regarded by the eldest wife Sun as a life-saving straw to control the power of the Gu family. On the night when Ling Chen was born, Yu Ping was tortured to death by Sun. From then on, Sun became the official mother of Ling Chen and her two sisters Ling Yao and Ling Qi. The three siblings experienced innocent childhood and contradictory Chinese and Western education, and formed their own distinctive characters. When they grew up, they experienced their own life stories: Ling Yao was weak by nature and was used by Sun to marry into the Tao family in Nanjing. After that, she lived a life worse than death. Fortunately, she was secretly protected by Wu Jianwen, a manservant who had a crush on her; Ling Qi was unwilling to follow in her sister's footsteps. Gu Yuan ran away to practice medicine with the American Richard, and they fell in love with each other; Ling Chen gave up his love affair with the actress Ruhua in order to avenge his mother and eldest sister. After years of planning, he finally defeated the Sun family and his younger brother Sun Yi, and regained the power of the Gu family...