In March 1961, journalist Ang-Li Ong’s wife, Jin, brings home a frightened toddler, Yili Wang. Jin and Ang-Li already have three children: Clare, George, and Henry. Jin claims the girl is a shim-pua, a girl adopted to become a future daughter-in-law for their son, Henry, who is blind. She insists on renaming the toddler Hsu-Min and orders everyone to use the new name. Amid the climate of fear under the White Terror, Ang-Li grows suspicious about why Jin is hiding the girl’s origins.

Ang-Li visits a medicine shop, where the owner, Wong Tai Tai, reveals that Hsu-Min is the child of a KMT-affiliated man, Wang Po-wei, with whom Jin is having an affair. Ang-Li knows Po-wei from university and knows Jin once loved him, but he had no idea the affair had continued after he and Jin married.

Two months later, Wong Tai Tai hurries to the Ong home to report that police have arrested Jin for spying for the communists. She tells Ang-Li that Po-wei orchestrated the arrest. Ang-Li is confused: Why would Po-wei betray Jin after he had entrusted her with his daughter? Wong Tai Tai warns Ang-Li that he could be arrested next if he causes trouble.