Pipa, now nineteen, wants to leave for the big city. After days of anguish, she tells her unyielding mother, the village's medicine woman, of her plans. To her surprise, her mother agrees—on one condition: when she arrives, Pipa must place a tiny, pink stone taken from the mountain near their village in the spiritual center of her employer's house.

Lao Fu, a family friend, takes her to Shanghai. There, with the help of her new friend and coworker Meisi, Pipa quickly secures employment in the house of Wen, a wealthy businessman with four wives. The house is enormous, the food opulent. A month into her employment, Meisi engineers an exciting assignment: Pipa is to bring tea to the master in his library. She does so, but when he opens the door, she staggers back and spills it all. Her eyes flit to his book by accident, informing Wen that she can read. From then on, her job was to fetch his books while he spoke with Western businessmen.

Later, Lao Fu checks in on Pipa. Still, she angrily dismisses him, admitting that she has also thrown away the pink stone. So Lao Fu tells her the buried truth: years ago, her mother, her father, Lao Fu, and Xiao Niou were great friends. Xiao Niou, however, coveted her mother. Though she cannot prove it, she discovers that he murdered Pipa's father out of lust. He died of a fall onto a field of pink rocks, just like Pipa's. After the fact, Xiao Niou left for Shanghai, where he became Wen.

Miraculously, Pipa finds the stone in a rag. After she discovers that Wen has raped Meisi, she snatches it, drops it in Wen's bed, and goes to bed. Days later, the PLA reaches Shanghai, and with Lao Fu, she flees to Taiwan and then to America.