Jiang Lingyu, a Shanghai university student living with her aunt, joins a resistance propaganda troupe against her family's wishes after the War of Resistance breaks out. She falls in love with fellow troupe member, the passionate musician Gao Libin. As the war progresses, the troupe moves to the wartime capital Chongqing, where Lingyu's cousin Zhou Jiarong, now a profiteer, pursues her but is rejected. After the war, Zhou becomes a corrupt "takeover official" profiting from national misery, while the married Lingyu and Libin live in poverty. Relying on old friend Xia Guangyuan for help, they rent a tiny room. Malnourished and worn from constant moving, Libin develops tuberculosis. Pregnant yet undeterred, Lingyu writes exposes against the corrupt officials, but collapses on the street from exhaustion...