The heroine, Lili, is a young single mother who gave birth to her son, Little Taozi, after an unexpected pregnancy eight years ago. They live in a compound on the outskirts of Beijing, and Little Taozi rarely even goes to school. One day, Xiao-mei, a deceased friend who re-established contact by chance, comes to visit the family, and in the course of a day and a night of getting to know and spend time with them, Lili reveals the child's life and her own emotional life. In the days that follow, the secret of the child's father seems to be about to become known when, thanks to Xiao-mei's presence, the young father, Eldest Taozi, whom she has never met, suddenly appears in the heroine's social circle.

The Song dynasty stone statues, dating back 800 years, stand in the wheat fields of Maozhuang Village. Eight-year-old Qing lives in this village with her mother, Hongmei, while her father works away from home all year round. On the way to school, she meets a ghost-like white child who has come to find his missing mother. With the child's arrival, Qing starts to sense whispering under the stone statues as her mother's secret past begins to reveal itself.