'Guardian of the Palace' tells the story of a time when a plague spreads in Heishun (Blackwater) Town during the warring warlords, and Tianya, Wunian and Jiujiu set out on a treasure hunt to find the Golden Moon Gem that cures the plague. The warlord Feng Pei Chuan was trailing them and tried to take the gems for himself, but Tianya and the others managed to subdue Feng Pei Chuan, reclaim the gems and save the people.
A serial murder case rocks a small town in China's semi-rural Hebei province. The film explores the case from the viewpoint of a teenage schoolgirl, Jing (Su Xiaotong), who becomes entangled with the case while struggling with her own burgeoning sexuality. In the face of police ineptitude and authoritarianism, and the restrictive, conservative mentality of the town's locals, Jing begins to develop her own theory about the case.