During a severe drought, veteran farmer Gu Changchuan uses half a ladle of life-saving water to revive a miraculous seed, causing a divine tree to pierce straight through the clouds, through which he also gets to know a red-tailed little fox hiding inside a white gourd. From then on, the ancient well dries up, torrential rains destroy the crops, and landslides and floods arrive; the village faces one calamity after another, and an old man and a youth hand-in-hand lead all the villagers through layer after layer of life-and-death trials. The little fox exhausts its strength and falls into a deep sleep; until next year when the divine tree flowers bloom, the spirit fox finally awakens, and the small courtyard returns to the bustling warmth of human life.