Returning to the twelfth lunar month of 1980, Zhang Hanling grips the icy earthen wall and hears Xiuer, his childhood sweetheart next door, stifling her sobs. In three days, she will be forced to marry a gambler from the neighboring village. In his previous life, he could only watch helplessly as Xiuer suffered after marriage, his heart full of regret but unable to do anything. Now that he has been given another chance, he clutches the hunting knife passed down by his grandfather and steels himself to cross the snow-covered back mountain. “Even if I have to enter a hunting ban zone and defy the team’s rules, I’ll earn enough for the bride price by hunting and protect you for the rest of your life!”
He never expected that when he gathered his three childhood friends, Zhao Tieniu, Goudan, and Zhuzi, and set off with their packs into the boundless snowy mountains, they would run into Xiuer, who had supposedly “taken her own life” on her wedding night and returned. It turned out she had memories of her past life too, and had fought her way out of the Wang family. Four hands gripping hunting knives and two hearts sharing the same regrets joined together amid the wind and snow.
They brave the biting wind to set traps and fight wild boars, trading their mountain spoils for cash. To protect Xiuer, they stand up to the Wang family and face down local thugs outside the supply and marketing cooperative. Later, they pool their money to open a purchasing station, selling treasures from the deep mountains in the county town and even establishing sales routes across provincial borders. From a hunting team in the back mountain’s dense woods to the “Mountain Gang,” which supports the livelihoods of an entire community, Zhang Hanling, his brothers, and Xiuer use their hunting knives to cut through the brambles and their loyalty to warm the years in an era of scarcity and burning passion. Amid the tide of reform and opening up, they ultimately forge a vibrant new era of their own.
