This is the story of the legendary founding of Baotown, a small isolated Chinese farming village, and its unforgettable inhabitants. By tracing the course of a friendship between a small boy named Dregs and an embittered old man called Fifth Grandfather, the author reveals the connections among all the villagers' lives and the way in which events become first tall tales and then a special kind of history. For the bond between Dregs and Fifth Grandfather results in an event which, told and retold until it reaches the ears of the Party, becomes an act of "youth heroism" that will end Baotown's isolation.