[1] In the late 1920s, a six-year-old girl named Lin Yingzi (Shen Jie) lives on a hutong in the south of Beijing with her family - her father, her mother and her nurse.

Her first friend is a mad woman Xiuzhen who is always standing at the hutong entrance waiting for her missing daughter Little Guizi.

She befriends a young man with thick lips who becomes a thief to support his little brother's schooling.

Yingzi becomes very sad and cannot understand why her nurse goes out to earn money instead of taking care of her own kids at home.

After his death, Yingzi leaves Beijing with her mother and baby brother and bid farewell to all the memories of her childhood.