Mountain Foraging in the 1990s: Grandpa’s Hand-Drawn Map

Changbai Mountain Forest Farm, 1992. His father is bedridden after a workplace injury, and the family is deep in debt. Chen Shoulin, a pool-hall “no-gooder,” has become the family’s biggest worry. After his grandfather dies, he leaves Chen a stack of hand-drawn mountain-hunting maps spanning fifty years. In the whole village, only Chen, who spent ten years roaming the mountains with his grandfather, can read the maps’ hidden locations, danger zones, and coded notes in the margins. Faced with an uncle trying to seize the family inheritance and a seasoned supply co-op clerk who cheats people on the scales, Chen uses the information advantage the maps give him and his mountain skills to dodge danger and find treasure again and again. Little by little, he earns back his family’s shattered trust and holds their crumbling household together. What dangers and riches lie in the unfinished blank areas on the map? And what kind of commotion will the five-leaf wild ginseng his grandfather cherished finally stir up?

This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.