Lin Yingzi, a little girl from the south of China, marvels about the wonders of the big city: Its busy streets, the dilapidated walls of the ancient buildings, the ringing bells on a camel's neck. She is thinking of all the people who had been part of her life for some time, but then quietly left her one by one, and the world seems to be full of miseries.

Her playmate, Niuer, who had been maltreated, Amah Song, a wet nurse in Yingzi's family, her loving father, who had been seriously ill and died in the end - now they only live in her memory. She wonders why this is so, but the little girl cannot find the answer.