The winds and sands of the northwestern Gobi cannot wear down a young man’s spirit. Clinging to the conviction, “How could I bow and scrape before the powerful, and let that rob me of my joy?”, Sun Zhengping leaves the countryside and enters officialdom. With no connections to rely on and no shortcuts to take, he fights his way through mountains of paperwork and endless meetings, treading carefully through the maelstrom of power.
The tides of the times surge. Some people lose their way as their original ideals grow clouded, but he stays true to the vow he made when he entered public service: to deliver real results for the people and bring peace to the region. Faced with the lure of personal gain, he stands against the rules with an unyielding backbone and solves people’s livelihood problems with all his sincerity.
From a junior local official to a regional leader, the higher his position, the stronger the temptations. Yet that line of poetry remains his guiding light.
