The state-owned high-speed rail (HSR) network, which connects major cities all over China, is playing an important part in lives of ordinary Chinese people in the last twelve years. Rapid development of the high-speed rail benefits the country on economic, environment and social aspects. The development also helps forming tightly knit city clusters and improve accessibility within these city clusters. In the last years, the Chinese government seeks to build a “four verticals, four horizontals” high-speed rail network, in order to reduce regional inequality and improve regional agglomeration. The impact of this network on people’s lives is an interesting topic to study. Most existing studies use statistics to show the HSR has done its work and can be considered as sustainable from a general image. However, smaller narratives are also important when studying social impacts, and a grass-root study can provide some new ideas about the impact of HSR on social sustainability. Based on the sustainability theory and metrics of evaluation, we chose two of these city clusters and conducted an in depth, cross case studies. By conducting these studies, we aim to probe into everyday lives of the participants, study how are their lives changed (or not changed) by the construction of HSR, and what are their feelings toward these changes.