The story is generally about a love affair between a middle-aged corrupt official and a young and pretty office clerk that ends in tragedy, intertwined with the life struggles of their relatives and others in a dynamic metropolis that’s growing at lightening speed and which in the film is known as Jiangzhou (江州), a fictionalized alias for Shanghai. The episode themes are said to be reflective of reality in present-day Shanghai: sugar-daddy love in the officialdom, corruption and cronyism in real estate, unaffordable housing in big cities, the nail-house narrative, exploited white-collars’ futile fight for justice and the invisible and omnipotent hand behind government dealings in a guanxi-oriented society.