The story begins in 1917 when a five-year-old Lydia Ivanova Friis and her Russian mother Valentina Ivanova escape from Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution after her Danish father Jens Friis was arrested by the police, they are later reunited fleeing the Bolsheviks, where it is then believed that Jens was killed at their hands. Eleven years later in 1928, Junchow, China, Lydia is sixteen and works as a thief with the help of Mr Liu, a pawnbroker, to support her mother. During one of Lydia's escapades where she finds herself in trouble, she is saved by a Chinese teenager named Chang An Lo. An Lo is a freedom fighter and a Communist rebel. He eventually becomes romantically involved with Lydia after she saves his life when he defends her honour.