Xiangrong Dong

Au Nord de la Chine, une vaste ville postindustrielle et pourtant vide, plongée dans un brouillard perpétuel qui semble piéger ses habitants. Un matin, une simple altercation entre deux adolescents dans un lycée dégénère et va souder les destins de quatre personnes brisées par l’égoïsme familial et la violence sociale. Une obsession commune les unit : fuir vers la ville de Manzhouli. On raconte que, là-bas, un éléphant de cirque reste assis toute la journée, immobile.

On New Year’s Eve, after Lei Xiao successfully brought her seemingly perfect boyfriend back to her parents’ home, she didn’t gain her parents’ trust. She remained constantly nervous about her temporary partner’s behavior while observing the reactions of her parents and neighbors in her hometown. Behind the apparent joy of the whole family, a larger lie was concealed.

In a small border town in Yunnan, five young men work hard to achieve their dreams but find it difficult to keep up with the demands of a materialistic society. The fourth brother, A Zhe, is especially troubled as he struggles to raise money for his fiancée's medical treatment. Driven by their desire for wealth, the brothers hatch a plan to rob a jewelry store, but their scheme quickly spirals into a dangerous crisis.

An accidental death of the suspect leads to the entire team of the Third Division being imprisoned. Six years later, team leader Cheng Bing is released but remains consumed by the case. Over the next eleven years, he lives a normal life while secretly tracking down the killer, determined to see justice served.

Hua Yi Long is an orphan and after a misunderstanding leads to a bar fight is which his right eye is injured. After surgery and a recovery period Yi Long is superseded to find that his right eye now has perfect vision and X-ray vision. After a young girl from the orphanage dies, Yi Long is motivated to go to medical school.

In an aerospace city in the north, seven children who were born an only child became closer than siblings and called themselves "The Big Dipper." They all promised to conquer the college entrance examinations so they can go to Beijing together but seventeen came and went and only Huang Yingzi made it. "The Big Dipper" was no more as everyone parted ways. Huang Yingzi went to Beijing for school and Jiang Yi left for the States. "Who do you like at the age of seventeen" has become a mystery lingering in the hearts of the seven people. As newcomers in the workplace, they were bruised and battered from the skirmishes between their ideals and reality. Their once pure emotions are like shining stars in the night sky. Huang Yingzi wants to reunite the group only to realize that there a question remains. Meanwhile, Jiang Yi and the others have already been presented their answer.

In 2003, a small mining town in Ningxia faces relocation when a burned body appears, echoing an unsolved case from a decade earlier. Veteran detective Chu Zhiqiang teams up with Zhang Tao, a reassigned investigator, to uncover the truth as the town prepares for relocation.