Let the Great Buddha Bear Witness

The Great Buddha Bears Witness is set in old China, a country oppressed by three towering forces, and tells the legendary life of Chongqing boy Chen Dadan, whose childhood nickname was Gou Sheng. From a young age, Chen Dadan did odd jobs at Chunfeng House and got by through petty theft. His only keepsake was half of a green jade pendant left by his mother. One day, while listening to a storyteller, he got into a fight with local thugs over a seat. The storyteller, Zhang Laofuzi, took a liking to him and gave him a folding fan containing fragments of the Dao De Jing.

On a stormy night, Chen Dadan went looking for the fan and stumbled into a ruined temple, where Kuisha, the bandit chief of Yingzui Mountain, was being hunted by Kuomintang agents. In desperation, Chen Dadan doused one of the agents with urine. Together with Tiedan, a boy from the blacksmith's shop, he saved Kuisha. Kuisha invited the two boys up the mountain. Chen Dadan agreed in hopes of escaping his troubles, and Tiedan went with him.

At Yingzui Mountain, Chen Dadan used his wits to deal with the underlings' provocations. He traded stolen liquor for a secret marksmanship technique and accidentally discovered a connection between the mountain stronghold's treasure cave and the Dao De Jing. While going down the mountain to buy salt, he was seized by kidnappers, but outsmarted and killed the bandits, earning Kuisha's trust. All the while, he continued to think of Cuihua from Chunfeng House and Zhang Laofuzi, and gradually began to see the Kuomintang's brutality.

As the times grew turbulent, Chen Dadan came into contact with the Communist Party and witnessed the Kuomintang suppressing the Communists and distorting the history of resistance against Japan. Under the Communist Party's leadership, he, Tiedan, Cuihua, and others took part in struggles to protect the mines and fight enemy agents. He also fought bravely in the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea. In his later years, Chen Dadan served as Party secretary of a Sichuan coal mine, protecting the Minjiang treasure and the people's peace. Beneath the Great Buddha beside the mine, he told his descendants of the past, passing down through the years the history of how the Communist Party led the people to break free of oppression and strive for a brighter future.