- When Lynn discovers that she is pregnant, finishing her studies as a flight attendant is called into question. Not wanting to have an abortion and hide her pregnancy from her absent boyfriend, Lynn hopes to give the child away at birth.
- Lynn is a young, seemingly naive woman who tries to participate in the ultra-consumerist marketplace of contemporary China (Changsha), but her heart doesn't seem to be in it. Despite pressure from her boyfriend and gigs that capitalize on her looks, she has difficulty following through. She doesn't learn English and skips an interview her boyfriend arranged.
In a rare effort, she tries to earn more from a part-time, living mannequin job but fails. A colleague overhears and offers a way to make money, which turns out to be selling her eggs to crude, ignorant, higher-income women and men.
Though the process is repugnant she is encouraged by others, only to learn she's pregnant and can't sell her eggs at that time. Her boyfriend is predictably calculating and selfish, telling her he won't "let her" have the baby because then she won't get ahead. She leaves their apartment and moves in with her parents. This introduces her to a new financial stress: her mother was blamed for a miscarriage suffered by a customer of her clinic and forced to pay large damages. Her mother is trying to turn around her fortunes by selling a beauty lotion in a multi-level marketing scheme. Her father doesn't know about the mother's huge debt.
Lynn offers her unborn child to the bereft mother through the mother's cousin. She can then avoid the often-counseled abortion and pay her mother's debt. The woman's cousin is calculating and demanding but they eventually reach an agreement.
Then her father learns of the payments that his wife is making and they have a brief falling out. Lynn takes her parents to tourist sites in Changsha, many related to Mao Zedong, who was born and grew up in that province (Hunan). Her mother shares a dream, that she becomes extremely successful in the multi-level marketing scheme. Lynn tells her mother that the father's dream is to be a poet. The father reads a poem and finally relaxes. It seems Lynn, who appears so small and powerless, has achieved a significant victory. She can have her baby as she wished, give away the child to settle her mother's debt, and she helped her parents come through this challenge together. She will be able to return to flight attendant school in time to finish.
Suddenly, COVID appears. The deal falls apart and Lynn finds herself alone with the baby in an Uber surrounded by empty streets in a shut-down city. As the infant cries for food and her breasts respond, she steps out of the car into a rainstorm and expresses the.milk rather than feed the crying infant. Then she walks away as the baby wails inside the car and the storm increases.
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