Wandering Through Republican-Era China (A.K.A. Selling Wontons from a Shoulder Pole in Republican-Era China)

Female lead: From penniless to outrageously wealthy, starting out carrying a pole and selling wontons.

Male lead: From worth less than a penny to outrageously powerful, starting out as an impoverished scholar.

Two fallen families from Beiping: Song Jiaren, who dresses as a boy and walks the streets with her wonton pole to put food on the table, and Li Meijiu, a poor student who guards a cabinet of old books while going hungry. They both live with dreams of studying in France. In the end, they sell everything, even the doors and pots, to scrape together the fare. They travel from Beiping to France, then return to face the nation's crisis, witnessing the birth of New China!

Theme: People who struggled through the old days.