The work describes the story of the joys and sorrows of a large Bai family in a village in the western Zhejiang Mountains over a span of hundreds of years, spanning five generations. The style of the novel uses a vertical description of the main family members as the main line, but the content also has horizontal echoes. The novel begins with flashbacks from Bai Jiaming, the fourth generation of the Bai family, recalling the attic of Zhimingtang in Bian Village, and gradually leads to the first generation Bai Qingxuan participating in the Panama International Exposition with his uncle, and falling in love with the Japanese woman Reiko Kuroki. A series of stories; the second generation Bai Zhiwen married and had children in Biancun, experienced various stories that happened in Biancun, fled the Japanese invasion of China, civil war, land reform, etc.; The third generation Bai Ruyu and four sisters were born and married in Biancun and other intersecting stories; the fourth generation Bai Jiaming was born in Biancun and had various conflicts between going to college and career marriage; and the legendary story of fifth generation Bai Xiaotian going to Japan and the United States to study.