In 1995, Lu Qingshan made the “stupidest” decision of his life: he gave up a secure, well-paid job in the provincial capital and returned to the poorest township. Everyone waited for a laugh, until he carried the seventeenth elderly resident out of the flood on his bare back.
He stayed on that “stupid” path for 33 years.
Seven young people who had been pushed aside formed the “Eight Riders of Qingshi” and swore an oath in a leaky warehouse. A letter of accusation brought down the county magistrate, but also earned Lu his first bullet. His wife, Jiang Ruolan, wielded her pen like a sword, writing report after report that shook the highest levels whenever he teetered on the brink of disaster.
From the township to the central government, behind every “big shot” he toppled stood an even vaster web. Financial tycoons laundered money across borders. Resource magnates forged satellite images. And then, when his long-lost biological parents suddenly appeared, they brought not a family reunion, but a question that could cost him his life: “If your cousin is a major embezzler, will you investigate him?”
This is an idealist’s wager against an entire era. A wager on whether one steadfast ideal can illuminate the darkest corners, and whether the hand holding a pen and the hand holding power can remain firm amid raging storms.
An epic tale of just how “foolish” one person can be, and just how “unyielding.”
