Li Dong‘e is a young woman living in a village in Yu County, Shanxi province during the Sino-Japanese War. Because of her beauty she was nicknamed "Gai Shanxi" ("The most beautiful in whole Shanxi Province). In 1941 she and other women from her village are captured by Japanese soldiers. The women are taken to a Japanese stronghold, raped and used as sex slaves.
Gai Shanxi twice rescues other women by offering herself to the Japanese. The continual rapes damage her both physically and mentally. After the war she is shunned by her husband and the villagers and commits suicide.