Return to Dust

The story follows the lives of Ma Youtie and Cao Guiying in rural Gansu throughout the year of 2011. Guiying is disabled, incontinent, and infertile, and has been mistreated by her family, and is past the normal age by which women are normally expected to be married in rural China. Their families arrange their marriage, and they develop some emotional closeness and tenderness. They lead a simple life farming with their donkey. There are multiple empty properties in their hometown and they move into one of them.