With "the struggle of human nature and the torrent of the times" as the core, it tells the story of Li Zhengguang's life from his birth in the cold land of 1961, through his "wilting and bad boyhood", his abandonment of school and his career in the world, his rise to the underworld in Harbin after joining Qiao Si, and his eventual exile in the capital and his downfall. It connects the background of Guandong with the ecology of the rivers and lakes in the early stage of reform and opening up, depicts its struggle between power, loyalty and destruction, and restores a heroic tragedy soaked in ice, snow and blood.
