Wang Bianlian is an aging street performer known as the King of Mask for his mastery of Sichuan Change Art in a true story. His wife left him with and infant son over 30 years ago. The son died from illness at age 10. This left Wang a melancholy loner aching for a male descendent to learn his rare and dying art.

Learning of his family's collapse, acolyte Goichi, sent to study silently at the Temple of the Golden Pavilion, must endure acute psychological distress.

Virgil, a college writing student, hopes to have his latest story published, but he must first get over one major hurdle before his work gets out to the world, his mercurial writing professor Richard Laymen.