In Zhangjiatun in the 1980s, widow Sun Hongying was assaulted and became pregnant on a rainy night. To give her child a way to survive, she married the honest man Zhang Defa without asking for any betrothal gifts. Defa accepted the child and swore to be his real father. Yet the gossip about who the child's real father was grew louder, dragging in Village Chief Zhang Hongchang and old secrets from the village past. Hongying went from hiding and crying to standing tall — she ran a small shop, took over operations, and bought shares in a chicken farm. Defa was injured while working to support the family, but husband and wife gritted their teeth and built a life together. An old acquaintance returns to the village, and new secrets surface from a storefront in the county town.