Set during China’s Spring and Autumn Period（770–476 BCE）, Sacrifice tells a tragic story of loyalty, sacrifice, and vengeance rooted in one of the most famous legends of Chinese history.

The ruler of the State of Jin, Duke Ling, grows increasingly wary of the powerful general Tu’an Gu (Wang Xueqi), while also resenting the influence of the upright Prime Minister Zhao Dun. At the same time, Zhao Dun’s son, Zhao Shuo (Zhao Wenzhuo), enjoys great success on the battlefield and personal happiness: his wife, Princess Zhuang Ji (Fan Bingbing), is pregnant with their child. Seeing the Zhao family as a grave political threat, Tu’an Gu orchestrates a deadly plot, poisoning the court and using the duke’s authority to order the extermination of the entire Zhao clan.

Witnessing her husband’s death while under examination by the physician Cheng Ying (Ge You), Zhuang Ji resolves to give birth to her child despite overwhelming grief. As Tu’an Gu’s men, led by Han Jue (Huang Xiaoming), hunt down the last surviving heir, Zhuang Ji entrusts her newborn son to Cheng Ying and takes her own life. Severely wounded by Tu’an Gu for hesitating, Han Jue survives, while the city is sealed and a ruthless house-to-house search for the infant begins.

In a desperate act of sacrifice, Cheng Ying’s wife (Hai Qing) gives up her own child to protect the Zhao orphan. Under brutal interrogation, Cheng Ying is forced to reveal false information, leading to the deaths of Gongsun Chujiu (Zhang Fengyi) and Cheng Ying’s family. Enduring unbearable pain, Cheng Ying raises the Zhao orphan in secret for years. When Han Jue later learns the truth, he joins Cheng Ying in a pact of life and death.

In a daring final move, Cheng Ying brings the orphan into Tu’an Gu’s own household, allowing the child to be adopted as Tu’an Gu’s godson. Thus begins a 15-year-long plan of vengeance, in which personal sacrifice and moral resolve collide with the weight of history.