A Chinese woman journeys to reunite with her geologist husband who she hasn't seen in seven years. They met in college and married quickly. Soon, he is sent to conduct secretive research on some faraway terrain. Their relationship together has been seemingly superficial; her only memories with him are of making love, dutifully fulfilling her duty as wife. She leaves from Beijing to see him after these seven years, struck by the green landscapes, but worries that they will have changed immensely. However, they reunite with little incident. She becomes a librarian at the base. Their deepest feelings are communicated through the Human Phonograph, Chodrak, who can sing beautifully in this bleak setting of any song he remembers. He mentions to her the policy about lipstick, relatives who have mysteriously died, but they do not discuss political details. Over time, the husband becomes more and more ill, his death symbolized through the last song Chodrak sings to the wife, and she leaves on a train, observing the husbands and wives in the countryside and imagining they sing to each other.