Everything happens for a reason.
This novel stays completely faithful to My Chief and My Regiment. It explains why Mi Long kept bursting into song: “You want me to come over! Who the hell wouldn't want to come over! Is your house a gun turret you can circle around?!” It also explains how Mi Long, so adept at making money on the black market, ended up as a low-ranking private in the War of Resistance, a post where death was almost certain. It explains why he hated his platoon leader, Li Liansheng, so deeply, and why Li Liansheng's death hurt him just as much. It also explains how Mi Long suddenly fell in love with Shangguan Jieci and Xiao Leibao while fleeing for their lives in Burma, and why he loved them so deeply and recklessly that he was willing to desert, provoking Long Zhangwen to make an example of him.
All of this came from the traces left by Mi Long's years between the White Mountains and Black Waters.
Mi Long had a foot in both business and banditry. He drew on the strength of an entire powerful bandit gang, and on his own bold determination to pursue the woman he loved, to win over Li Linglong, the younger sister of Li Liansheng and daughter of local strongman Li Haishan. They married happily and later had a child.
Then, despite the chaos of the times, the couple and the brothers from the old gang took over Li Linglong's father's territory, carved out a little paradise of their own, and lived happily.
Then came September 18, 1931, and the Japanese arrived. Their home was destroyed...
So they went to war. Li Liansheng, a military academy student appointed platoon leader, suffered defeat after defeat and was betrayed by his superiors. He fought again, lost again, and kept fighting. One by one, Mi Long's brothers, along with his wife and children, were tricked by Li Liansheng into fighting to the death. By the time they reached Chandan, only Li Liansheng and Mi Long remained.
