Shen Man, a television producer, gives birth to a daughter named An'an by cesarean section. Every day, her mother-in-law, Zhao Xiufang, brings her a bowl of bitter postpartum soup. Unable to stomach it, Shen Man lets her husband, Zhou Yi, drink it for her in secret for eight days. On the eighth day, Zhou Yi suddenly collapses and is diagnosed with severe liver poisoning. Shen Man smashes open her mother-in-law's locked drawer and finds a notebook of folk remedies—the soup contains something that should never have been in it. She reports the matter to the police and gathers evidence, but Zhao Xiufang turns around and accuses her of framing her. Zhou Yi lies unconscious in the ICU, while his mother-in-law, released on bail pending trial, leads relatives up the stairs toward Shen Man's home, one step at a time.