1806, Cloud Mountain. Jiayi is the lowliest of the Gu family's servants, so she is thrilled when their son and heir chooses her to be his 'little wife'. But this quasi-marriage offers no security, and Jiayi's situation becomes increasingly perilous with her husband's family plotting against her.

1906, Shanghai. Scarlet is devoted to her work as a midwife in Red House Hospital, and can't imagine abandoning it for the constraints of marriage - until she meets benefactor Wenqiang Gu. After a whirlwind courtship, he persuades her to join him at his remote estate and to bring modern medicine to the village.

Scarlet arrives at Cloud Mountain only to find her new marriage overshadowed by superstition. The villagers believe the family is cursed, and soon Scarlet begins to fear her fate is bound to that of another bride, one who lived a hundred years before . . .