两个性格迥异的姐妹，两种不同的人生态度，会有怎样差别的人生？

父母双亡后，佃农家年少的姐妹俩相依为命。十三岁的姐姐开始策划自己和妹妹的人生。

姐姐给自己设下的人生第一个重大目标是——嫁给地主当小老婆。但是面对地主婆的严防死守、地主女儿的万般刁难，她该如何达到目的？

妹妹却更愿意随缘随心，喜欢上一起玩耍的伙伴，就嫁了；丈夫当兵去了，她就等着；丈夫当了国民党军官回来，她跟着欢喜。

随后的日子却给了姐妹俩当头一棒，解放了，地主被镇压了，妹妹的国民党丈夫也成了反革命分子。这一回，姐妹俩又会如何应对新的人生境况？|After the deaths of their parents, two sisters from a tenant farming family live together. The 12-year-old elder sister begins to plan a life for both of them. After many twists and turns, relying on strategies beyond her age, the elder sister marries into a landlord's family as a concubine and

gradually takes charge of the family's affairs. Not overly worried about her life and future, the younger sister marries the friend she played with in her childhood. The author describes the different personalities, destinies and life attitudes and paths of the two sisters, White Peony and Red Apricot, and the general and unique relationships between the sisters, their surroundings and the times. In the vicissitudes of fate, the great changes to the social environment in the decades before and after China's liberation are shown. The author describes love and marriage between the

poor girl and the landlord beside flower river in a delicate way, thereby depicting the political and economic situations of nearly half a century, and presenting the lives and destinies of people of different social strata and contrasting identities.