O-Lan is a hard worker and she is very perilous and strong willed, she complains only that there is not enough work within the house to sustain her and begins help her husband out in the fields. Do to this increase in help they are able to save some silver aside and harvest enough food to develop a surplus. O-Lan announces to her husband that she is caring a baby, and he is ecstatic and prays to the gods it is a boy. When delivery time comes O-Lan quietly goes into a room alone and gives birth to a baby boy in complete silence, which is really another testament to her strength as a woman. With the extra silver they’ve earned they are able to buy some land from the House of Hwang, because the family’s prosperity is in decline due to lack of money administration, as well as a lackadaisical life style. Pleased with his decision to buy more land Wang, begins work on his newly acquired good earth. When Wang receives word that O-Lan is pregnant once again he is a bit irritated, fearing this will take her away from field work, however she is back in the fields the same day having given birth to a baby boy.
Wang receives word that his uncle’s daughter is running about the streets and flirting with boys which is very unacceptable behavior in Chinese culture. So Wang takes it upon himself to go and yell at his aunt who in the heat of the moment loosens her tongue and curses her husband’s misfortunes. A few days later Wang’s uncle comes asks Wang for a loan, at this Wang begins to argue with his uncle, but ends up giving him the loan because in Chinese tradition you are to emphasize respect on your elders. Because of the incident with his uncle Wang feels as though he has been cursed and when O-Lan gives birth to a girl, this only further reassures him that he is entering a streak of bad fortune. Then to top that the seasons rains do not come as scheduled and the entire village enters into a severe drought, only the land that Wang bought from the Hwang family is harvested and the House of Hwang is now very near poverty. Wang’s uncle comes to him and begs for some food, which Wang feels obligated to give, however when his uncle come a second time he sends him away. As retaliation for this Wang’s uncle starts a rumor that Wang is hoarding food and silver away, because of this the villagers break into his home one night and begin to steal his furniture, when they find no food or things of value, but O-Lan stops them and reminds them that they’re doing wrong by stealing.
The little girl that O-Lan first gave birth to became disabled due to malnutrition. When O-Lan gives birth to another girl, which during this time they know they cannot sustain, she kills it quietly and Wang then goes outside to bury the body however because of his weakened condition he was unable to dig a hole and instead just left the body outside with a hungry stray dog lurking nearby. Wang and his family now very hungry and weakened decide to travel to the south to look for a better way of life. Once in the south the family’s fortunes don’t change much Wang drives around a rickshaw all day long and the children and O-Lan resort to begging and eventually stealing, just to make enough money to survive. Meanwhile a revolution is starting in the south and one day the town villagers break into the Great House and begin to pilfer anything of value, and Wang who is mobbed into the house along with them, decides that he will not steal anything, and he simple wanders around until he comes to a large fat man hoarding gold in the corner of one of the rooms. He is overcome with rage and desperation so he takes the gold from the man, so that he can use it to get back to Anhwei. They then return to Anhwei and their home only to find that it has been pillaged, and all their belongings gone.
Time progresses and Wang and his family begin to acquire more and more land, and they manage to survive through all natural obstacle, such as drought and locus. However during the floods when Wang has more time for leisure he begins seeing a prostitute named Lotus Flower. The family from their acquire the House of Hwang and his uncle comes into live with them. Wang through the help of Cockoo acquires Lotus Flower as a concubine, and the two women move into the House of Wang, despite O-Lan obvious hatred toward them. Their old neighbor and close friend Ching is now also staying with them and he tends to their land affairs. O-Lan and Wang’s father die, and Wang continues to live with his uncle whom he cannot throw out due to his gang ties and threats. In Wangs old age he is much like the Old Lord who owned the House of Hwang, as he too now has a lust for young women, and he spends his final years being cared for by a young slave named Pear Blossom, and his children despite his wishes do not have a deep respect for the good earth and plan to sell the land shortly after their father’s death.
