An old leper who owned a remote sorghum winery dies. Jiu'er, the wife
bought by the leper, and her lover, identified only as "my Grandpa" by the
narrator, take over the winery and set up an idealized quasi-matriarchal
community headed by Jiu'er. When the Japanese invaders subject the area
to their rule and cut down the sorghum to make way for a road, the
community rises up and resists as the sorghum grows anew. In the process
of resisting the Japanese, Jiu'er dies