It’s recession time, so you gotta work harder if you want to get rich! Mama Jiang and Papa Jiang have walked half their lives together, bickering all the way. The topic of fights involve living expenses, and also their brood of three children. Papa Jiang is a retired government employee, earnest and down-to-earth, happy with a peaceful life. Mama Jiang doesn’t feel the same way. Why be poor when you can be rich! So she places all her hopes and dreams on her three kids one day becoming rich, so they don’t have to worry about money like she did. Get rich? Who doesn’t want that. Even the daughter-in-law prays for her husband the eldest Jiang son will successfully start his own business so she can return to her maiden family with her head held high. But the road to riches is long and arduous, so how does a small fry successful hit the jackpot?

The story begins with the Goddess Nuwa subduing and imprisoning an evil Centipede spirit. The Chalice fairy tasked to guard the centipede spirit however, was careless, the centipede spirit escaped. As punishment, the Chalice spirit was banished to the mortal realm where she will have to grant three wishes to any mortal who puts water into her chalice for a thousand times.

Kurosaki Yoriko is 32. She has no boyfriend, no friends and no job. One day in July, she moves away from her family home in Shirokane, Tokyo, with the help of her younger sister, Miki. Yoriko starts to live alone a small apartment for the first time. But because she does not know what to do with her free time, she spends her days idly eavesdropping on the conversations of her neighbours who live next door – a divorcee with a very gaudy appearance and an unemployed man – through the wall. In the middle of this, a weird letter from “Tanaka Yasuo”, a stranger, is posted to Yoriko. Miki occasionally comes to visit, but is astonished by her sister’s lethargy. Then Yoriko visits Koichi, the ex-boyfriend she broke up with five years ago and whom she cannot forget, and cries in front of his home. However, she gets turned away. Yoriko continues to get letters from “Tanaka Yasuo” even after this. This is the story of the small incidents that occur within a 7-minute walking distance from Yoriko’s apartment.

February 2006, Shikina Island. Dr. Koto is riding his bicycle to visit his patients. He is told by one of them that Takehiro-one of the boys who was brought up on this island-has passed the entrance exam for a junior high school in Tokyo. The island is filled with excitement at the wonderful news. Meanwhile, the island's only nurse, Ayaka, is in Tokyo. She said that she is going to attend a rehabilitation seminar. But actually, she has gone to Tokyo for a medical examination... -

In the mid-1820s, a natural disaster strikes the city of Nantong, tarnishing most of the city's rice fields. Running out of food supply, city mayor Hong Chi-wing (Wong Wai Leung) decides to use the city's military food supply to feed the people. A few days after the disaster, an official from Beijing arrives to the city to check the military supply. Upon seeing an empty trailer, he sentences the Hong family to death. His daughter Hong Po-yin (Sheren Tang) escapes from punishment and becomes a maid in Prince Wai's mansion, living under the name Hong Po-kei. Twenty years later, Po-kei reunites with the rich rice merchant Chiang Kiu (Elliot Ngok) at his manor in Wuxi, whom she was betrothed to before the disaster, while Prince Wai is there for a visit. Chiang Kiu's wife, Yan Fung-yee (Susan Tse) recognizes Po-kei and reveals her identity to Prince Wai. Kiu manages to convince the Prince to free her, and marries Po-kei as his fourth wife. He appreciates Po-kei's wisdom and persistence, and decides to entrust his business to her, telling her to find a suitable successor for him before he dies. Hungry for power and eager to keep tradition, Fung-yee finds every opportunity for her son, the eldest child Bit-man (Ngo Ka-nin) to be the only heir of the family business. She tries to strip Po-kei from power even when Chiang Kiu's final will reads that Po-kei should be the full owner of the business. Despite attacks from the family, Po-kei manages to keep the business in good shape. She is impressed with second son Bit-ching's (Ron Ng) intelligence and guides him to become the successor, but her efforts are met with Chai Kau's (Wayne Lai) challenges. Chai Kau seeks vengeance for being mistreated and wants a pay back from Bit-man and the Chiang's family uncle, Pang Hang (Henry Lee). After rounds of battle wits and fights, Po-kei and Chai Kau develop a deep friendship. Chai Kau appreciates Po-kei's work ethics and pledges his loyalty to her. With their excellent cooperation and quick thinking, the business manages to survive through the locusts disasters and the Taiping Rebellion.

Maki Maki, Sebuki Suzume, Beppu Tsukasa and Iemori Yutaka happen to meet and form a quartet. They even begin to live together in Karuizawa during the winter, but there is a big hidden secret.

Maki, who has a negative personality and barely gives her opinions, plays the lead violin in the quartet. She has family and only goes to Karuizawa on the weekends for performances. Suzume, who is unemployed, plays the cello, while Yutaka plays the viola in the quartet. The leader of the quartet and the one providing his grandfather's villa as a base for them is Tsukasa. He plays the second violin in the quartet and comes from a musical family. A man of many secrets, he also works at a donut company.

Resembling the famous Silk Road, the Ancient Tea Road located in southwestern China was an important gateway for transportation and communication between ancient China and West Asia. It was a giant platform for the political economic social and cultural intersection of different ethnic groups and a gigantic lifeline stretching on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau and the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Tea Horse Road' or 'Tea Horse Path', was a central trade route for exchanging Tibetan horses and Chinese tea. The corridor came to play a crucial role in the communication and exchange between the cultures of present-day Yunnan, Sichuan and Tibet, with the route passing through, among a number of important posts, the volcanic ranges of Tengchong, the colourful culture and dwellings of the Khamba people in Changdu, the breathtaking gorges of Lijiang, through Tibet as far as Burma and India.