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The people living at the Inner Mongolia border have never cared about how life should change, but life still quietly changes. A originally unremarkable white ping pong ball floated along the water to Bilige, a Mongolian child. Bilige's grandmother told him that it was a night pearl bestowed by heaven. Bilige firmly believed in what his grandmother said and called his two best friends - Erguotou who only knows how to ride a motorcycle and not a horse, and Dawa who is small in stature but never gives up easily - to guard the grasslands for a whole night. The children did not see the night pearl shine, but instead went home and got scolded by the adults. What else could it be if not the night pearl? The children went to ask the lama who knows the most on the grasslands, but still did not get an answer. The annual Nadam Fair began. The golf ball on the movie screen was mistaken by the children as Bilige's night pearl. The projectionist told Bilige that it was a ping pong ball and not a treasure. Disappointed, Bilige threw the ball into a rat hole. Back home, Bilige hid the wool curl that his grandmother always held in her hands and became unhappy himself. Dawa's father won a television set from a beer lottery. Bilige's father saw the beautiful house in the magazine brought by Mengke and wanted to build one too. Bilige's sister Wurina envied the dancing girls of the Ulan Muerqi troupe and wanted to go and audition. Dad Qiao Sang let her decide with a ring toss game. Skillfully, she hit the beer bottle that dad had been unable to hit and excitedly hopped on the bus to the county town. Bilige and the others gathered at Dawa's house to watch TV. They erected a high antenna but could only receive sound. On the TV, a ping pong match was being broadcast. Accompanied by the ping pong sounds, the commentator informed everyone that table tennis is China's national ball. Excited, the children retrieved the ping pong ball from the rat hole and decided to return the national ball to the state in Beijing. The children set off without telling their parents, thinking they could reach Beijing in a day. As the sky grew darker, Erguotou's motorcycle was almost out of fuel. Not expecting Beijing to be so far away, Erguotou planned to go home. However, Bilige and Dawa were unwilling to give up and continued riding eastward on their horses. After Erguotou had traveled quite a distance back, he realized that all three people's food supplies were on his motorcycle. He hurriedly turned around and tried to call the two back. As the sky grew darker and the grasslands turned pitch black, a grassland patrol car passed by in the distance. Erguotou shouted and chased after it, leading the grassland police to find Bilige and Dawa who were lost and exhausted.