On a spring day Munakata Ikujou visited an old temple to view a 1000 years old sakura tree. There Ikujou discovered a 3-year-old girl and adopted her as his own daughter. 16 years later, Sakurako has grown up to become a beautiful woman. Sakurako then has a fateful meeting with Takanashi Hiroto. Their pure love begin.
A woman travels to Nagoya to meet her boyfriend who works there. She is disheartened to learn that he is seeing a new girl. However, she decides to stay a few more days, in a guesthouse at a dead end. She starts again in an unfamiliar place, meets new people and slowly her wounds begin to heal and she learns to move on.
In nineteenth century China, two girls named Snow Flower and Lily are forever bonded together as sworn sisters. They are paired as laotong by a matchmaker who is also responsible for arranging their marriages. They are isolated by their families and communicate by writing in a secret sisterly language, Nü shu (a historical practice in China in that period) on a unique Chinese fan that Snow Flower possesses. In the present day Shanghai, their descendants Sophia Liao and Nina Wei struggle with the intimacy of their own pure and intense childhood friendship. As teenagers, Sophia and Nina were introduced to the idea of laotong, and they signed a traditional laotong contract on the cover of Canto-pop Faye Wong's album Fu Zao (Restless in English). Eventually they are separated but come together again when Sophia falls into a coma after being struck by a taxi while cycling. Reunited at long last, they must come to understand the story of the strong and close ancestral connection hidden from them in the folds of the antique white silk fan or lose one another forever in the process.
