Moon Hee (Kang Soo-yeon), a seventeen-year-old high school student, lives with her mother Ha Soo-jung (Kim Hee-jin) in a single-room basement apartment. Like her friends, she attends an after-school academy after her classes are over, but unlike them, she must rush off to a barbequed pork restaurant as soon as she is finished with her studies. She works late into the night carrying dishes, cutting meat and cleaning tables. After 11 p.m., she even has to scrub off pork grease stains from the grills. She finally drags herself home tired after midnight.
When Moon Hee was a child, Soo-jung was an ambitious and high-spirited young woman who tried her hand at running a flower store and a bakery and had passionate love affairs with many men. But now, all that has left is depression brought on by her extreme poverty, and Moon Hee is the only one she can lean on. Then one day, Soo-jung sees a news broadcast about Moon Hyun-cheol (Lee Jeong-gil), the CEO of the I-Mall Department Store who has just donated 3 million dollars to charity. Soo-jung gives Moon Hee a letter and sends her to deliver the letter to the wealthy department store owner.
