The notorious bandit chief Red Lama is brazen and ruthless, throwing his weight around and killing and robbing at will. The bandits under his command seize the Hengdaohezi railway station and even use boys and girls descended from the Donghu people in a “bridge sacrifice.” They then massacre the ancient city of Huyi, loot the “Eight-Cornered Divine Beast,” the treasured relic kept in the Donghu descendants’ City God Temple, and try to keep it for themselves. Faced with these brutal bandits, the Donghu descendants, led by Hu Shiqinan, burn with a fierce thirst for revenge. Hu Dawei has just blown himself up with a bomb, dying in a bloodbath at the City God Temple. His brother, Hu Ershao, sacrifices himself by detonating a grenade to cover his comrades. Cuihua, Xiaxia, and Aimei lose their children and husbands one after another, but grief only strengthens their resolve. These heroines repeatedly smuggle supplies for the anti-bandit cause through enemy-controlled territory, and in the end they fearlessly spill their blood on the battlefield. At the cost of their lives and blood, the Donghu descendants finally reclaim the Eight-Cornered Divine Beast and help the Jin forces liberate Hengdaohezi railway station. They press on to the Red Lama bandits’ lair and use military stratagems such as Kongming lanterns and the wooden ox and gliding horse to break the Eight Trigrams formation guarding the ancient fortress. They wipe out the Red Lama bandits and stumble upon a secret underground treasury, seizing countless treasures and bringing China’s cultural relics back into the light and into their homeland. Through the struggle against the bandits, the Donghu descendants write a magnificent chapter with their lives.
