In a provincial factory town in Guangdong, China, the sprawling chicken processing plant dominates everything – the economy, the rhythm of the days, the shape of futures. Thirteen-year-old Li Yan lives with her ageing grandmother who is determined to secure her granddaughter a job at the plant through a family connection with the manager, Wang. Li Yan resists in the only way available to her: small, cryptic acts of disruption. At the morning market, she practices a peculiar ritual: swapping items between stalls, rearranging the order of things for no reason except that she can. After a visit to the slaughterhouse, Li Yan becomes fixated on a question to which no one will provide a proper answer: Where does life begin? She watches chickens being moved silently on overhead conveyors to be stunned, plucked and disemboweled. Twenty-one days to hatch, thirty-two to mature, then slaughter. Her grandmother dismisses her questions about eggs and fertilisation with irritation and recourse to folklore, but Li Yan cannot let it go.