A simple question, where is mother, becomes the entire world when you're small enough that the world is just water. This film watches tadpoles navigate belonging and loss without ever turning it into a lesson. It trusts you to feel the weight of searching for someone who might not be searching back.

A group of lost tadpoles sets out to find their mother, and the film follows their adventures and misadventures along the way. A narrator guides the story. The film is one of Te Wei's early efforts to move away from Western-style animation, aiming instead for a painterly look influenced by Qi Baishi and closer to native Chinese aesthetic traditions.