Seo Mun-kyung, a merchant in ancient China where polygamy is legal, monopolizes the salt sales business. The magistrate of the province collapse families of Hwa Ja-heo and Hwang Mu-dae through Mun-kyung. When Ja-heo's wife Byung-ah fakes her death and disappears with Ja-heo, Seo is angered. But when he sees Mu-dae's wife Ban Geum-ryun, he is satisfied and this causes Mu-dae to end his own life. Geum-ryun makes Seo's concubines Chun-ae and Kyo-ah lose their sight and she takes Byung-ah to Seo. When Byung-ah has Seo's baby, antagonism and jealousy grows between the two women. Geum-ryun's jealousy kills Byung-ah's whole family and also kills Seo. Geum-ryun chooses to join her husband in death.

Mild-mannered and modest Sook-young looks like your usual middle-aged woman, but happens to be a man-killing murderess. On a train trip to Mokpo, she remembers an earlier trip as a prisoner on furlough accompanied by a menacing but kind butch female guard. On the train they meet Hoon, a young man who falls for Sook-young. The guard lets them be alone at a bizarre marriage in a hill-top graveyard.