Yilan is a Chinese immigrant mother in the U.S., who loses her sixteen-year-old daughter to a car crash. A year after the daughter's death, Yilan brings the possibility of adopting a Chinese daughter up to her husband Luo. Luo suggests surrogacy instead, and the two find a surrogate in a province of China, where surrogacy is illegal but cheaper than in America. Fusang, the surrogate, is a young mother of a boy she lost to an abductor/human trafficker. Her husband is described to be mentally disabled, and Fusang takes the surrogacy job to make money and start a new life. Luo arranges for Yilan to live with Fusang in China during the pregnancy, while he remains in America to work. Yilan and Fusang grow fond of each other. They find out that Fusang is pregnant with Yilan and Luo's twins. One day, Yilan and Fusang see a young beggar boy in the streets, and Fusang is convinced it is her son due to a moon-shaped scar on his forehead. An older beggar man comes and claims the boy is his son, which causes an altercation between Fusang and the man. Fusang gets pushed to the ground before the boy and man walk away, and Yilan is worried about the health of the twins Fusang carries. At home, Fusang begs Yilan for money to offer the beggar man in exchange for the boy. Yilan does not want to give her the money; they cannot be sure if the boy is really Fusang's son, and she wants Fusang to focus on the pregnancy. Fusang gets angry and stands on top of a table, threatening to jump and kill the twin fetuses if Yilan does not give her the money. Yilan reflects on how she is prepared to give Fusang anything in order to save the twins, on how mothers care only for their own children when it comes down to it, on how Yilan and Fusang will be prisoners of each other, forever.