Shen Shijun, a native of Nanjing, went to school with Xu Shuhui and was introduced to him as a trainee engineer at a factory. The heroine, Gu Manzhen, is originally from Lu'an, Anhui province. Her father died when she was 14, and she lives in Shanghai with her mother and siblings, also working as a typist in the factory where Xu works.
The story takes place on the fourth day of the Chinese New Year, when Xu and Shen go to a small restaurant to have dinner and meet Gu Manzhen, who is also there, and since then the three of them have been eating at the restaurant and going out. Gu lost a red glove in the photo place, Shen did not say a word, braved the rain alone, stepped on the muddy road to retrieve it. At noon the next day, he quietly handed it to Gu. Gu did not come to work because of a cold and flu, Xu, Shen is trying to visit her, Gu sent his brother to the office to send the key to the drawer, asked Xu to help take out yesterday's typed official documents. When the two men were eating, they talked about Gu asking her brother to deliver the key, as if they were afraid that people would come up to her house and have a sense of mystery about her family.
The three men went out to dinner again when Gu recovered from his illness and went to work. The company's main goal is to provide the best possible service to its customers," he said. The first one is a dancer, and the second one is a social worker," he said. The house she lives in was a gift from her sister's "friend". Now she is going to marry Zhu Hongcai, a trader, and move out. Shen also describes her own family: her mother and young widowed sister-in-law, with a three-year-old nephew, run a leather store. His father and an aunt, who had gone to Liang, lived in Nanjing with his mother and three small children.
Shen's father, who was seriously ill, left his business in Shen's hands and asked him to resign and return home. When Shen returned to Nanjing, he missed Gu and asked Xu to accompany him to Nanjing. Shen's father, seeing that Gu resembled a dancer he knew in Shanghai, thought they were sisters. When Shen went to Shanghai to see Gu, he told Gu about his father's words, which caused Gu's anger and misunderstanding. She thought that her sister was forced to make a living and had nothing to hide, and since Shen's family had some concerns, she should forget about it before it was too late, and the two of them parted ways unhappily.
The two men were in a state of shock when they were forced to leave the house, but the two men were unable to do so. Man Lu, due to her own abortion twice, will not be able to give birth to children, want to get close to her husband, knowing that her husband intends to get his hands on her sister-in-law, she pretends to be sick and designs to let her husband rape her, put her sister in seclusion for a year, and give birth to a boy. The mother's family moved to Suzhou immediately for fear of Shen's coming to find Manzhen. Shen found Manlu, who returned the ring he had ordered under the false pretense that her sister did not want to see him.
Manzhen was hospitalized and gave birth to a baby, and told the woman in the same room, Cai Jinfang. Jinfang's husband helped her to escape from the hospital and find a job as a teacher, but unfortunately, her mother found her and persuaded her to marry Hongcai. Manlu also brought her son to beg her, but she was still not moved. One day, she met Manlu's maid, Bao, who told her that Manlu had died of illness and Hongcai had failed in business and was living in the neighborhood. So she often looked out for children of similar age. One day, she saw Zhaodi, the daughter of Hongcai, who had been brought out from Hongcai's hometown, and she also saw her own son. On another day, she saw a small coffin coming out of Hongcai's house. It turned out that Zhaodi had died of scarlet. She went into the house to see that her son also had scarlet fever. Hong Cai is not at home and the maid informs her that Hong Cai abuses the children and often does not come home. She took care of the child in Hongcai's house for more than ten days to save the child, and finally, decided to marry Hongcai, whom she hated the most. After the marriage, Hongcai makes a fortune and spends a lot of money, ignoring Manzhen's mother and son. One day, Manzhen found Hongcai at the clinic with his mistress and child, and decided to get a divorce and work alone to raise the child.
At this time, Shen's father died and moved to Shanghai after his marriage, but he often thought of Manzhen. When Xu Shuhui, who had been abroad for ten years, came back from the United States, Shen went to Xu's house to look for Shuhui, and unexpectedly met Manzhen there. After they left the Xu family home together and talked about their goodbyes at a restaurant, Shen told her that he had been looking for her and that her family had moved and her sister had told him that Manzhen was married to her mother's nephew, Dr. Zhang Yujin. He did not expect her sister to do such a thing! The two of them met, looked at each other halfway, and Manzhen said, "Shijun, we can't go back." He knew it was true, and was still just as shaken when he heard it. Her head was resting on his shoulder. He hugged her. After a while, she said, "Shijun, are you happy?" Shijun thought, "What do you mean by happy?" He married his sister-in-law's cousin, Shi Cuizhi, without love, and people who love each other cannot get married.
The story should have ended here, and Zhang Ailing, borrowing from Shen, was thinking, "Perhaps love is not passion, nor is it nostalgia, but it is just years, and years and years have become part of life."