During the late Qing and early Republican period, a severe drought ravages the Central Plains. Ten-year-old Zhang Huaiyin goes out to dig up wild vegetables to save his mother, tumbles down a cliff, and nearly falls victim to refugees. Fortunately, Batu Lu Alin, a vice general of the Bordered Blue Banner, rescues him. Alin discovers that the red lotus birthmark on Zhang Huaiyin's wrist matches the pattern on the River Luo Geomancy Map. To preserve his family's bloodline, Zhang Laoliu entrusts the boy to Lin Sanye, the leader of a traveling troupe, revealing a century-old feud surrounding the Zhang family's ancestral work, the River Luo Explanations.
At the Lin family's troupe, Zhang Huaiyin learns bone-shrinking techniques and fire-breathing tricks. He and Lin Xiaodie grow up together, but the tyrant Qian Batian makes life difficult for them, splitting up the troupe and setting them on different paths.
Lin Xiaodie discovers that the sound of a copper bell conceals the inheritance of the Zhongnan Mountain sect. To protect the secret of the River Luo Map, she leaves.
As an adult, Zhang Huaiyin remains under Batu Lu's watchful eye as the man who once saved his life. Batu Lu gives him a goose-feather saber, hoping to recruit him into the army. After a victorious campaign against bandits, Zhang Huaiyin meets Tong Yugu, a female worker at the military supplies bureau, unaware that she is connected to a Russian conspiracy to invade China. After he reunites with Lin Xiaodie and her child, Tong Yugu, driven by jealousy, frames him, and Saiyin sacrifices himself to save Zhang Huaiyin. In the end, Zhang Huaiyin and Lin Xiaodie foil Russia's plot to steal the Northeast's dragon vein, but when the truth comes to light, he loses Tong Yugu. Through bone-shrinking techniques and the River Luo Explanations, the story weaves together conflicts among the martial world, the Eight Banners, and Russia, unfolding a blood-soaked legend on the northeastern frontier at the end of the Qing dynasty.
A great martial arts world