In 2009 in the city of Shenzhen, Tian Wenjun works in his cyber café while his ex-wife
Lu Xiaojuan works at an office. Their son Pengpeng spends his day at work with them,
one week with each according to the deal they made during the divorce. One afternoon,
after Lu brings Pengpeng to the café, Tian has trouble with some unruly teenagers that are
starting a fight inside his shop. When he goes to separate them, Pengpeng tells his dad he'll
be joining a group of neighbor kids that have come to pick him up to go to the park and leaves.
Pengpeng is having fun with his friends when suddenly he notices his mother's car pass by.
He runs after it while crying out for her, but Lu doesn't see him, and eventually he loses sight
of the car. Pengpeng stays in the middle of the street, wondering what to do next when suddenly, a
strange man picks him up and takes him away. Back in the café, Tian has closed up so he goes to ask
the neighbor kids about his son. A child tells him Pengpeng saw his mom, so Tian rushes to Lu's home,
thinking she took him when it wasn't actually her turn. When he doesn't find him there,
the reality of what's happened finally hits him: they're lost Pengpeng. Tian calls the police, but
they won't take the case because twenty-four hours must pass in order to report a missing person.
After calling some friends for help, Lu and Tian go out to the streets to look everywhere for
their kid. Tian particularly concentrates on the train station, thinking the kidnapper may leave
the city, and his theory isn't wrong: the man and Pengpeng indeed escape by train, but Tian
arrives too late and doesn't see them. The couple searches around until the twenty-hours pass, and
then they go to the police, who easily find the kidnapper on security cameras on the main avenue
and the train station. If it hadn't been for the bureaucratic protocols, they could've caught him.
For now, the only thing left to do is for the parents to take a DNA sample for the database
and wait for any news. On their way out, Lu breaks down and slaps Tian, and she would've beaten him
up if she hadn't been stopped by her new husband. Not trusting the police to do anything about it,
Tian continues the search himself and offers a hefty reward to anyone that could find his child.
He makes a video, posts online, talks to witnesses for clues, and hands out flyers. Sadly,
all the calls he gets are from scammers that try to get the money from him first. A year later,
he goes to see a poor man that swears he's found his child, but when he gets there,
Tian sees it's not his kid. The man insists he can take him in exchange for the money anyway since
he can't afford to raise him, and Tian leaves the house in a rather sour mood. The more time passes,
the less attention people pay to him, and the newspaper won't publish the picture anymore.
One morning, Tian wakes up to a message with a picture of Pengpeng that gives him hope.
Lu believes it to be edited so she doesn't go with him, but Tian takes the train to meet the man in
case it's real. This time, he brings a knife with him, having encountered too many scammers by now.
When he makes it to the station, the man calls him and asks him to meet him at the end of the market.
Tian approaches the area carefully and when he sees a man with a kid, he throws something near
them to be sure it's Pengpeng. At the noise, the kid turns around and confirms it's a scam,
but the man and his friends also see Tian and begin chasing him to steal the reward money.
When they reach him at the bridge, Tian takes out his knife to defend himself,
but there are too many of them, so he jumps into the river to escape.
Meanwhile, Lu is regularly seeing a psychologist, who is trying to help her move on.
She's also having issues with her husband, who wants a new kid but Lu won't be intimate with him.
Lu doesn't want to move on because that would mean forgetting about Pengpeng.
Later, when she visits Tian at the cybercafé, she notices he looks very sick because he hasn't been
sleeping. Lu also overhears a conversation with the landlord, who tells Tian he'll be renting the
shop to someone else so this is his last month - in fact, it's a decision he took months ago,
but he waited to kick Tian out because of the missing child. After leaving him some
sleeping pills, Lu intends to leave, but Tian wants to take her to a special place: a missing
children support group led by Han Dezhong. In this group, parents of missing kids -especially those
that don't want to have more children- share their experiences and offer each other hope and comfort.
When Tian's turn to talk comes, he shares his story and how it's come a point where he misses
the calls from scammers because at least they gave him hope for a while - nowadays,
the silence is depressing. Lu's turn is next, and at first she doesn't say anything, but eventually
she breaks down and begins crying as she expresses how guilty she feels for not having seen Pengpeng
in the car mirror. The group shows their support by clapping and reciting their "cheer up" chant.
Sometime later, Tian is visited by Lu's husband, who points out how much money it costs to keep
the search going and offers some of his own so that Tian can keep the shop. The only thing he
requests is for Tian to talk to Lu because she isn't capable to move on and start over, and their
relationship is tense. Tian refuses to meddle with their marriage and reminds him that he didn't lose
a kid so he doesn't know what it feels like. Many days later, the missing children support group
goes on a trip together to see a police friend of Han's who recently cracked a child trafficking
ring, so they may find clues about their kids there. The trip turns out to be quite invigorating
for their moods: the group has fun singing on the bus and later, having dinner while taking
calls from scammers and insulting them together. The only awkward moment of the evening comes when
Han explains he's become vegan since he lost his child because he used to work for a trader
that trafficked monkeys that were eaten by high socialities and he couldn't help associating the
two. The next day, the group gets permission to talk to all the suspects that have been arrested.
Many of them refuse to talk since any word they say may make their case worse, although one man
does admit he doesn't know anything because he only traffics women, not children. There's also a
woman who says that around the date Pengpeng went missing, she saw some men put a child in a bag,
killing him through suffocation, but she can't be sure it was Pengpeng. Feeling upset over the
lack of progress, the group takes the bus back in a completely opposite mood they arrived in.
Suddenly, Tian sees a truck pass by with sacks in its trunk that are moving on their own.
Han makes the bus driver follow the truck, which takes a different road when he notices he's being
chased. The bus keeps cornering the truck until it crashes, so the smuggler leaves his vehicle
and runs away with the sack, and the group goes after him on foot. When they finally catch him,
they hurry to open the sack and are disappointed by its contents: it's just a monkey. On their way
home, a few members of the group throw their fliers through the bus window.
Two years later, Tian is working on a food cart when he receives a shocking picture:
a boy that seems to be Pengpeng. He meets with the informant who tells him about a village in the
countryside and refuses to take the money because he thinks the couple has already suffered enough.
Tian and Lu travel there with Han, who calls his police friend as soon as they arrive at
the right house. The parents approach the kid they see outside and confirm it's Pengpeng when
they see his old scar above his eye, but the boy -who is now older- doesn't recognize them.
His new mother Li Hongqin sees them and comes out of the house to check what is going on,
but her presence only provokes Tian and Lu to pick Pengpeng and run away with him.
Hongqin goes after them, leaving her other child behind and crying out for help to get the
other villagers to chase the couple too. Pengpeng doesn't recognize his blood parents so he keeps on
crying and calling Hongqin "ma" - his weight and struggling are also making it difficult for Tian
to run, so eventually they fall to the ground. The villagers catch up with them and a fight starts
over the child, but thankfully the police arrive just in time before things get violent. Everyone
is taken to the station for interrogation. Hongqin explains she's infertile, so her husband had a
child with another woman and then brought him home. She swears she didn't know anything about
kidnapping and that her husband was a good man until he recently died, but when the cops show
her the screenshots from the security cameras, she can't deny that's him. In another room, Pengpeng
is also being asked questions: he doesn't remember anything about the day he was kidnapped and he's
worried about his sister Jifang. Upon learning there's another child, the cops bring her over,
and Hongqin lies by saying she's her niece because she's afraid they'll take her from her too.
However, Jifang keeps calling her mama, so the officer asks for the real story. Hongqin swears
Jifang was found abandoned at a construction site in the city and isn't a case of abduction,
but the cops want to look into her case anyway, so they have to stop Hongqin from fleeing away with
the child. Meanwhile, Pengpeng breaks his parents' hearts by asking the officer to arrest these two
strangers that want to take him away. Half a year later, Hongqin is released from prison - she was
only given a six-month sentence for obstruction of justice since she had nothing to do with the
abduction itself. Since the DNA test was negative and Jifang was confirmed not to be her daughter,
Jifang was placed under the care of an orphanage. As soon as she saves some money, Hongqin goes to
the city to visit Jifang, but orphanage director Fan doesn't allow her to because she doesn't have
legal rights. When night falls, Hongqin sneaks behind the building and climbs the pipes to say
hello to Jifang through the window, although it only lasts a few seconds before she leaves
because a nurse is coming over to check on the kids. The next day, Hongqin goes to an important
law firm she had already called in advance for an appointment. However, after reviewing her case,
the main lawyers don't want anything to do with her so they send intern Gao Xia to get rid of her.
Hongqin asks for his help instead and so Gao accepts to take a look at her file over lunch.
Sadly, the law is very clear: only cases of abandonment are up for adoption,
not abduction, so Hongqin must prove her dead husband truly found Jifang and didn't kidnap her.
Afterward, Hongqin goes to see Tang Qing Shan, a former coworker of her husband's that was there
the day Jifang was found. Meanwhile, Tian and Lu continue to have trouble living with Pengpeng,
who still doesn't like them and keeps on asking to be taken home to his mother and sister.
Their support group is going on tour soon and they want them to bring Pengpeng to spread hope,
and while Lu is reluctant at first, she eventually gives in not to make anyone sad. The next day,
Gao learns that he's given an official sanction because his boss has used him as a scapegoat, and
he loses his job after he punches said boss for having used him like this. Hongqin finds him when
he's leaving the building and tries to hire him because now he can build a case around the witness
she's found, but she can only pay half his fees. Gao doesn't want to take the job, but since now
he needs the money, he accepts under the pretense of doing Hongpin a favor. Back in the orphanage,
Lu has brought Pengpeng to spend the day with his sister. After seeing how happy they're together,
she decides to try to adopt Jifang, and when she tells Pengpeng this, he's so glad that he holds
her hand for the first time. Later, Hongqin takes Gao to see Tang so he can record his testimony,
but Tang denies having seen anything. After Gao leaves furious for having wasted his time,
Hongqin scolds Tang for lying, so Tang explains he's come to the city to work and he can't afford
to get in trouble. He also needs to get back to work, so Hongqin gives him the address of
the motel she's staying at and asks him to visit her later so they can keep talking about this.
When night falls, Tang shows up at the motel and Hongqin tries to convince him to testify again.
Since he won't accept money, Hongqin grows desperate and offers him to spend the night there,
which Tang accepts. The next day, after having recorded his testimony, Gao takes Hongqin to the
orphanage to talk to Fan, who still refuses to let her see Jifang for various reasons.
Giving the child back to the kidnapper, even if she technically wasn't one, would send a horrible
message to the public, and also, Jifang deserves a better place to live than a poor farm - Lu has
already applied to adopt Jifang, and Fan hopes she is the one to get the girl. Gao and Hongqin leave
on the bus, but Hongqin gets off halfway when she sees the missing children support group doing
promotion on the streets and notices Pengpeng is with them. She rushes to hug him, but as soon
as Lu calls her out as the abductor, the group begins attacking Hongqin, ignoring Tian's pleas to
leave her alone. After she apologizes to Tian for everything, it's Gao the one that manages to take
Hongqin away to safety. Later at night, Gao goes home where he has his own problems to deal with:
his mother is prone to emotional outbursts and refuses to accept an increased dose of her pills
from the doctor, hating the idea so much that she flips the table with the food on it. She's
become such a problem that her caretaker tells Gao she's quitting as soon as a replacement is found.
Later, when he meets with Hongqin, Gao gives her back her money and accepts to help her for free.
Meanwhile, Tian has grown so paranoid that he even carries Pengpeng with him when he goes out
to throw the trash. That night, he notices Han watching him from his car and tries to talk to
him, but Han pretends to be asleep. Minutes later, Tian gets a text from Han saying he's done so much
yet he's gotten nothing back, so he can't do this anymore. The following day, Lu has a talk with
her husband, who is angry because she had said no to having another child with him but now Pengpeng
is back, she wants to adopt a random girl. He's so fed up, that he decides to ask for a divorce.
In the meantime, Han and his wife go to the Family Planning Office to apply for a birth permit since
the wife is pregnant. However, to get the permit, they need to present the death certificate of
their first son. Han refuses to do so because that would mean accepting his son is dead.
Some days later, for Pengpeng's birthday, Lu and Tian throw a big party for him and invite
everyone from the support group. Han uses the opportunity to announce he and his wife will
have a baby soon and it's all legal, and the implications create a very awkward moment.
But Tian shows his support and asks everyone to congratulate Han by singing their cheer-up chant.
Han is grateful but also overwhelmed, so he leaves the party for a moment to cry in private.
A couple of weeks later, Lu and Hongqin go to court to decide who gets to adopt Jifang.
Both lawyers present very good arguments, but in the end, the judge decides neither of them will
get the girl. He can't allow her to go back to Hongqin because the public would see it as a kid
returning to their abductor, and Lu still isn't divorced yet so she needs her husband's agreement
to adopt, which she doesn't have. Afterward, Gao takes Hongqin to his house so she can work
as his mother's new caretaker while he tries to appeal to a higher court. Later that night,
when Tian is taking out the trash again, he notices Hongqin hiding in the shadows.
She only wants to see Pengpeng, but Tian knows this isn't the first time she's been around,
so while he admits he doesn't hate her, he still asks her to leave and never come back.
A few days later, Gao takes his mother to the hospital for a check-up and Hongqin gets the
results of the general tests court asked for to check she's healthy. The results she finds
are incredibly shocking: Hongqin is pregnant, and her husband had made up the fact she's infertile.
Surprised and overwhelmed, Hongqin breaks down and cries her heart out in the middle of the
hospital hallway. Meanwhile, Pengpeng starts going to school, and while he mentions Lu and
Pian as his parents in his introduction, he also mentions Jifang as his sister,
who is still at the orphanage waiting for her mother. This story is based on true events. The
real Gao visited the real Jifang at the orphanage when he could, and the real Tian also got to
reunite with his son in 2011. The real Han hasn't given up and is still searching for his child.
All the actors also got to meet the real people behind the characters they're playing,
including the real Hongqin, who showed them how lonely she is in her now empty house.