In a small town at the turn of the century, a boy named Xiaoyu attends a high school with a twisted, concentration-camp-like regime. Fengzi is Xiaoyu's best friend, and Fengzi likes him, but before he can bring himself to say so, he dies in an accident. From then on, sunlight disappears from Xiaoyu's life, leaving only endless study. Later, he goes to college in Beijing. The sunny young man Monk, from Ulaanbaatar, and A Luo, a down-to-earth girl from Sichuan, enter Xiaoyu's sheltered world of college life, and he is reunited with the warmth and sunshine he has been without for years... But this is only the beginning.
