On a stormy night, before the coffins of Zhang Bei’s parents had even been properly sealed, his own uncle kicked down the door with a gang in tow.
“You little curse who killed your parents! Get out of the old house!”
Fourteen-year-old Zhang Bei, blood running from the gash on his forehead, shielded his eight-year-old sister Xiao Cao, who was burning with fever and convulsing, as they were thrown out onto the streets.
Their food was stolen and their home seized. The siblings huddled in a leaky cowshed, waiting to die.
His sister was burning up and close to death, but Zhang Bei begged the entire village on his knees and couldn’t get so much as a single pill!
Kneeling before his parents’ graves, he swore with bloodshot eyes, “If I don’t make something of myself, I’m no son of a man!”
He pried three life-saving silver dollars from a crack in the wall, clutched a mysterious bronze box, and headed straight into the wolves’ den of the black market.
His kindling knife cleaved through the hungry wolves. Blood splashed across the medicine shop’s threshold, but he managed to snatch his sister back from death!
Surviving was only the beginning.
Collecting scrap, only to have thugs steal it? Take them on! Even if you’re beaten bloody, get it back!
Raising chicks, only to have them mauled by a vicious dog? Block the door with a cleaver! Even the village chief won’t get in your way!
Firing up a brick kiln, then getting shaken down for protection money? Smash a brick into their faces! I’ve only got one life, so come and take it if you dare!
From an orphaned brat in a ramshackle cowshed to Zhang, the brick-kiln boss famous throughout the county;
from a feral kid fighting over a strip of barren land to a real estate tycoon shaking up the provincial capital.
Zhang Bei’s path is a bloody road hacked open with a cleaver, a ruthless road blazed by brick kilns that light up half the sky!
“Anyone who blocks my way to survival, whether you’re a village tyrant, a street thug, or even the King of Hell... I’ll smash right through you!”
[This feral kid is vicious. Enter at your own risk!]
A furious tale of an underdog’s rise in 1979, full of splatters of mud, sweat stains, and raw grit!
