A satirical novel about a remote village of people with disabilities, known as the Liven villagers, in the mountains of Henan. A local official has an extravagant plan to raise money by buying the preserved body of Lenin from Russia and turning the village into a tourist attraction. To pay for it, he organises a troupe of performers to tour the country. The book is a wild, comic fable about ambition, poverty and politics, mixing absurd humour with real sympathy for its outcast characters.