In the north of China, a huge post-industrial city is immersed in a perpetual fog that traps its inhabitants. One morning, a simple altercation between two teenagers from a high school will forge the destiny of four individuals, victims of family selfishness and social violence. The only thing they share is the same recurring obsession: fleeing to the city of Manzhouli, where they say a circus elephant sits for hours, motionless, impassive, oblivious to the world's problems.