NJ Jian, his wife Min-Min and their two kids are a typical middle-class family, sharing their Taipei apartment with Min-Min's elderly other. Now in his mid-forties, NJ is a partner in a computer hardware firm which made big profits but will go bankrupt soon if it doesn't change direction. NJ warms to the idea of teaming up with Ota, an innovative designer of games software in Japan, and enjoys spending time with the charming and urbane Japanese man. Things start to go wrong for the Jians on the day that Min-Min's brother A-Di gets married - Min-Min's mother suffers a stroke and falls into a coma, and NJ bumps into Sherry, his first childhood sweetheart, a woman (now married to an American) he hasn't seen for twenty years. In the following weeks, Min-Min will breakdown and disappear to a religious retreat, her daughter Ting-Ting will get her first rough lessons in love, her son Yang-Yang will get into trouble at school and her brother A-Di will have to deal with a clash between the bride he chose and the woman he spurned. There will be an ugly murder in the apartment block where the Jians live; a young man will give in to his sense that life is inherently unfair and cruel and commit a crime which will ruin his own life. NJ will go to Tokyo to negotiate with Ota - but also to secretly meet Sherry and find out if life can really give him a second chance.