The work describes the love and conflict between rural areas and cities, agricultural civilization and industrial civilization after the reform and opening up. A river traces back the history of a family and a country; a river flows through the changes in the duality of urban and rural areas. The six rural youths went from farmers to vagrants, and from vagrants to wage earners; the clerk Liu Jianguo went from a primary school teacher to a government civil servant, and then from a government civil servant back to a university teacher. In the endless stream of time, through each vivid little person, as well as their psychological conflicts and persistent pursuit, the meaning of life and the abstract concept of society are concretely expressed.
