Liang Xigua is a destitute young man scraping by in the city's margins. One day, his aging refrigerator, which had accompanied him through many solitary summers, assumes human form and inserts itself into his life. They clash over food, fight to survive, pull each other down, and prop each other up, generating a host of absurd daily incidents. Xigua slowly comes to understand that he is not the only one who has awakened the life of an appliance.