Kaili Blues

Weiwei disappears one day, triggering Chen Sheng's urgent search. Believing Crazy Face might have sold the child, Chen confronts his half-brother in their rural Kaili village, the tension between them escalating as unfamiliar guilt and fear surface.

Chen learns that Weiwei was taken on a trip to Zhenyuan by his old mentor Monk. Before Chen travels, the village's old doctor asks him to bring keepsakes to her former lover, a Miao musician now dying in Zhenyuan. He agrees to carry the message and set off.

Chen boards the train to Zhenyuan and begins the long journey to find Weiwei. On the way, he slips into a dream that transports him to the mysterious village of Dangmai, where past, present, and future blur.

In the Dangmai dream, Chen rides most of the distance on the motorbike of a young man who later reveals himself to be Weiwei. The road and scenery become dreamlike as identities and loyalties braid with memory.

Chen meets a hairdresser who looks identical to his deceased wife. He recounts how he first met his future wife in a club as a young gangster, how Monk helped him when his wife fell ill, and how he later avenged Monk's son after a gambling debt, which landed him nine years in prison.

Before leaving Dangmai, Chen serenades the hairdresser with a song while a traveling rock band performs in the village. The moment blends longing, memory, and music as the dream closes in on its emotional edge.

Chen arrives in Zhenyuan and reunites with Monk, who explains that he took Weiwei there to keep him safe from Crazy Face. Monk asks Chen to let Weiwei stay with him for a few more days, offering a chance to adjust to the new safe place.

From a distance, Chen spots Weiwei through a pair of binoculars and smiles at the sight of him. The moment marks a fragile sense of progress in the ongoing search.

Chen visits the old doctor's old lover's home and learns that the Miao musician has died. The encounter ties the elder's longing to reconnect with the musician to the present events surrounding Weiwei.

The musician's pupils play a final song to send him off, a haunting moment that echoes the musician's life and art. The scene provides a quiet, elegiac close to that chapter of the story.