In 1988 at the Red Flag Coal Mine, Su Xiaoyan, who dropped out of high school to supplement her family's income, quit her job at the state-run cafeteria and set up a stall at the mine entrance to sell wontons. She encountered Zhou Tiesheng, a retired coal miner and mining squad leader, and the two came to know and love each other amidst hardships such as gangster harassment, license crises, and coal mine hazards. Carrying a heavy burden, the small family struggled forward, supporting their younger siblings' education while painstakingly running the wonton business. Under the tides of the era, they stepped out of the mining area, headed to Chongqing and Chengdu to make their way, upheld their original aspirations by starting a business steadily, and helped laid-off folks from the mining area. With a bowl of piping hot wontons, they wrote an era's struggle story of ordinary people filled with burning fireworks and intertwined joys and sorrows.