In the early 1990s in Dahe Village, village beauty Xu Chunyan, newly widowed and pregnant, jumps into a river with no way out, only to be rescued by fellow villager Chen Guangming. Enduring gossip and stigmatization as a "husband-cursing" woman in the village, she resolves to leave her homeland and head to the city. Hiding her pregnancy, she works as a waitress in a large hotel, where she fortuitously meets Zhang Chunsheng, a widowed public servant with a daughter, and the two gradually develop feelings for each other. However, Zhang's elders refuse to accept her unborn child who does not belong to the Zhang family, and she is driven out of the house on the day she gives birth. Isolated and helpless, Xu Chunyan relies on her fine craftsmanship to start a business, simultaneously raising her newborn and struggling to pioneer sales channels. Amid heavy pressures from convention and survival, she carves out a counter-attack path of self-reliance for a grassroots woman.