Setting



Luo and the narrator's adventures take place in the Yong Jing district of China's Gansu province. The village they have been reassigned to sits atop the summit of a mountain range referred to as "The Phoenix of the Sky." Across a deep valley lives the young seamstress whom the boys visit often.

The mountain's climate is perpetually rainy and misty, creating a heavy gloomy mood, making the villager's labor even more difficult, and incessantly dousing Luo's cigarettes.

The boys themselves live in a strange hut balanced on stilts. Beneath the house is a mud pit, home to a large pig. This small detail perfectly summarizes the impossibly strange situation the two have found themselves in.