早熟的少年小毕（钮承泽饰）与母亲生活在台湾的一个小村庄里，母亲最近嫁给了一位年长许多的中国大陆籍男子。故事由小毕的一位同学以旁观者的视角娓娓道来，讲述了小毕从懵懂走向成熟的坎坷历程。这位少年虽聪慧却也有着性格缺陷，他大胆地在初恋、少年犯罪与家庭危机交织的险滩中摸索前行；与此同时，台湾社会也在时代的变迁中艰难地寻求蜕变。
Zhu Xiaofan witnessed the coming-of-age of her neighbor, the boy Bi Chujia (played by Yi Shengzu, Zheng Chuanwen, Niu Chenze, and Tuo Zonghua).
To ensure a better upbringing for the boy, Bi’s mother (Zhang Chunfang)—who had been deceived into pregnancy and subsequently abandoned—married Bi Dashun (Cui Fusheng) when the boy was six; Bi Dashun was a civil servant nearing fifty who had moved to Taiwan from the mainland. Bi Dashun treated the boy as his own, teaching him to read and write with the hope of seeing him attend university. However, feeling like an unwanted "burden," the boy remained deeply estranged from his stepfather; he even went out of his way to spite the man by stealing comic books and bento boxes, engaging in early romance, and picking fights. A conflict involving money caused the relationship between the two to hit rock bottom; caught in the middle, Bi’s mother chose an extreme measure to spur the boy on, hoping to help him realize a more profound meaning in life.
