Wei Yiming, an ordinary young man from a farming family, is like a seed fate has left behind on a field ridge.
He fails the college entrance exam and gets his first taste of what it feels like to have a dream shattered. Then layoffs send him stumbling along the fringes of the city. A failed blind date, no luck finding work: life slaps him across the face again and again, though he has nothing to his name.
But he refuses to kneel.
By day, he hauls cement at construction sites. At night, he studies by the streetlights. After being fired, he chews on steamed buns as he sends out résumés; after being rejected, he wipes away his tears and keeps learning new skills. Every time he falls, he turns his scars into stepping stones. Every time despair takes hold, he clutches that faint glimmer in the dark with all his might.
This is a story about refusing to accept one's fate. In the clumsiest yet most steadfast way, Wei Yiming chips away at the ice fate has frozen around him, inch by inch. From a country boy to a workplace elite, from someone others looked down on to someone they admire: he proves through his actions that no one is born a winner. Only those who refuse to lower their heads can chase the light.
When at last he stands atop life's heights and looks back, the hardships that once nearly crushed him have all become stars illuminating the road behind him.
