An old, blind banjo player (Zhongyuan Liu) was promised as a child that when he broke his thousandth string, his sight would be restored. As the promised cure draws near, he and his apprentice, Shitou (Lei Huang), also blind, diverge in their beliefs on the purpose of music. Qing Xu also stars in writer-director Kaige Chen's heartfelt fable, adapted from the novel by Tiesheng Shi.