“Blood stains the rice ears, a scholar grips a blade”
Chen Shugen, a top student struggling through the mud of Guangnan, has the grit of his grandfather, a veteran of the Vietnam War, etched into his bones. Yet the humiliation of a bowl of plain rice in the cafeteria drags him into an abyss. The key his bunkmate Huang Bida hands him is no token of friendship, but a key to an underground kingdom. From bloodshed on campus to risking his life in the underworld, knowledge becomes his sharpest blade, while his conscience is his heaviest chain. As the Hongmen's dragon banner unfurls before him, he stands on steps built of corpses, with rice fields behind him that he can never return to.
