Seventeen-year-old Jiang Cheng is cast aside by his adoptive parents and sent to a desolate northern town to live with his gambling-obsessed, deadbeat father. Arriving with just a suitcase, a pack of cigarettes, and a looming sense of dread over his uncertain future, he steps off the train and into a bleak, rundown place far from everything he knows. There, he meets Gu Miao, a quiet, troubled girl, and her brother Gu Fei, a boy his age with musical notes shaved into his hair. Disenchanted with life, Jiang Cheng and Gu Fei are reluctant to connect, but fate--and Gu Miao--have other plans.