Chen Jiang, a graduate specializing in aquaculture, secures a fish-farming support project. But after returning to his village, the village Party secretary's son, Zhao Gang, seizes the project, while his fiancée, Liu Mei, breaks off their engagement on the spot and withholds the 88,000-yuan betrothal money intended for his mother's surgery. With nowhere else to turn, Chen Jiang leases a barren saline-alkali wasteland and uses his professional expertise to raise specialty fish. Resentful, Zhao Gang poisons the fish fry and destroys his stock, but Lin Xue from the Agricultural Bureau secretly helps Chen preserve the evidence. Six months later, Chen Jiang's aquatic products become a huge success, bringing prosperity to the entire village. Zhao Dafu is investigated for embezzlement, and Zhao Gang falls into debt and goes bankrupt. Liu Mei and her mother come begging to reconcile, but Chen Jiang turns them down and is about to marry Lin Xue. Just then, Heilong, a loan-shark boss, surrounds his fish farm with his men, intending to seize his exclusive fish-farming techniques...