In an unremarkable county town in northern China, the story quietly begins.
Yu Mingliang, deputy captain of the criminal investigation squad at Shengcheng Public Security Bureau, is ambushed by criminals while tracking a case. A brutal car crash leaves him disabled, casting a heavy shadow over his career.
Just as the police follow the clues and begin to suspect Zhang Yao, the underworld boss and chairman of Guangyao Group, no one could have imagined that on a cold New Year’s night, he would be brutally stabbed to death outside his own home. This sudden turn of events makes the case all the more baffling.
At this point, Yang Hao, an ordinary noodle-shop owner, unexpectedly becomes the focus of everyone’s attention.
These three men, so different in status, actually grew up together. Since their youth in the 1990s, over the long course of more than twenty years, they have witnessed the changing tides of the times together. They have also felt firsthand the cruelty of growing up, endured the ups and downs of love, and become deeply entangled in the grudges and bloody violence of the underworld.
Once inseparable, they have ended up betraying one another and becoming enemies. Fate is like a hidden puppeteer controlling everything, binding them all together with an invisible force, then mercilessly driving each of them down a completely different path as the years rise and fall like a river’s tide.
This is both a vivid portrait of an era, bearing the many marks of a defining period, and the inescapable fate of an entire generation, filled with countless regrets and sighs…
