Lu Li, a young heir to the non-traditional tradition of Nuo opera, discovered that his family's "judge mask" that no one could wear allowed him to see strange "debt patterns" on people's bodies. When he returned to his hometown town, which was shrouded in educational anxiety, a series of strange things happened one after another in which children fell asleep and disappeared. All children who have had accidents have experienced a "sudden enlightenment" and then quickly withered away. Lu Li was forced to get involved in the investigation, and gradually uncovered an ancient rule called "parent-child loan": parents use their children's talents or future as collateral in exchange for short-term "success." In order to save his child, he must put on a Nuo mask, face the most twisted obsessions and fears of each family in a carefully choreographed Nuo drama, and have an ultimate confrontation about love and sacrifice with this monster bred by collective anxiety.
