Through the stories of several students of the Conservatory of Music, who enter school, seek employment, get married, have families and build their careers, the novel brings out the historical situation and real-life entanglements of several generations of qin players, as well as the complex attitude of contemporary society towards national cultural heritage. The story involves three generations of qin players, young and old, from “qin” to “people”, and then to the deepest depths of traditional Chinese culture and the spiritual world of the literati, vividly depicting the contemporary fate of traditional culture.