In 1973, on the day of his wedding, Gu Changqing is publicly jilted by his fiancée, Liu Yulan. Having seen through the humiliating fate he suffered in his previous life, he takes the initiative to break off the engagement, separates from his biased stepmother along with his younger brother and sister, and moves out of the family home. Despite the whole village's ridicule, he uses his memories to build a makeshift greenhouse on wasteland behind the village and tackles the challenge of growing vegetables through the harsh winter. With the help of educated youth Su Qinghe, he overcomes snowstorms and blizzards, deals with Zhou Dahai's malicious sabotage and competition from neighboring villages, and insists on keeping the accounts transparent while securing supply channels to the county town. Gu Changqing leads the villagers in developing greenhouse vegetable farming, turning Qingshi'ao into a commune demonstration site for greenhouse vegetables. Through hard work, he rewrites the impoverished fate of his family and the entire village.