Lin Yumo, a young lady from a scholarly family, had been familiar with poetry since childhood, and was arranged by her family to be engaged to a well-matched old-fashioned literati. However, she was deeply influenced by the New Culture Movement and longed to study freely and pursue personal values. In Peiping in the 1920s, the aftermath of the May 4th Movement was still unsolved, and new ideas and old ethics collided fiercely. She went on a hunger strike to protest, and finally won the opportunity to enter the new women's normal school. At school, she was exposed to vernacular literature and Western thought, and met passionate young students (such as Chen Qiming, a man from science and engineering who pursued science to save the country, or Su Man, a radical classmate who advocated women's rights).
She begins to question arranged marriages, and the ideological gap between her and her fiancé, a gentle but conservative scholar, deepens. At the same time, she developed a vague affection for Chen Qiming, who had similar interests.
The family put pressure on her to complete the engagement. Her fiancé's family also asked her to drop out of school on the grounds that "it is a virtue for a woman not to have talent".
Yumo faces a difficult choice: obey his family's arrangements and live a stable but depressed life? Or bravely break off the engagement, bear the risk of social criticism and family severance, and pursue studies and possible free love?
Purpose: Women in the Republic of China broke through the shackles of the times