Fang Qingmai wakes up aboard a train bound for Shanghai. A moment ago, she was about to collide with an oncoming truck. The next, she is jolted awake by the sweltering heat of a green train car that feels like a steamer basket.
It's 1993 in China. She's traveling to Shanghai with her grandmother to settle her grandfather's affairs. She's been reborn.
After the paperwork is done, her grandfather's apprentice offers to buy the twenty-odd-square-meter workers' apartment her grandfather left behind for a thousand yuan.
Fang Qingmai is thrilled. It may not seem like much now, but in a few years, property here will be worth a fortune! She never imagined her family had once owned an apartment here!
Before Fang Qingmai can stop her, her grandmother firmly turns down the offer. That's when Fang Qingmai realizes her grandmother has been reborn, too!
The old woman and the young one squat at the entrance to the lane and discuss things for ages. Then her grandmother plants her hands on her hips and declares that they aren't going back to the countryside! She won't bother with those ungrateful sons and daughters of hers this time around!
And so, in the little house at the entrance to the lane, Grandma's peach pastry shop opens for business. Fang Qingmai gets her Shanghai household registration fifteen years ahead of schedule, and the two begin their little life in the big city.
Theme: Live well and cherish your youth
