In 1975, deep in the Changbai Mountains, Chen Sanshui dug up a fragmentary stele engraved with ancient seal script in an underground lab left behind by his father. He also uncovered a destiny long buried: seven stone steles that sealed the Earth's primordial energy, the Earth Marrow. If it ever got out of control, civilization would be destroyed.
Together with Zhao Tiezhu, a demobilized soldier, and Shen Hongxing, a bookish scholar, he formed a makeshift trio. Armed with the Barefoot Doctor's Handbook and homemade gear, they embarked on a decade-long adventure.
From Soviet gold mines in the mountains and forests of China's northeast, to Ming dynasty shipwrecks in the Xisha Islands of the South China Sea; from an expedition team's ruins at Lop Nur in the Western Regions, to a moving stone stele on the snowy slopes of Mount Everest, they hopped freight trains, broke into restricted zones, battled American and Soviet agents, and fought mutated beasts, caked in mud and covered in scars. Their powers came at a price: Chen Sanshui's left eye crystallized, and he lost his memories; Zhao Tiezhu's right leg was crippled, and he became one with the Earth Marrow; Shen Hongxing's hearing deteriorated, and he was left mentally and physically spent.
Along the way, they unearthed the secret history of Zheng He's voyages to the Western Ocean, stumbled upon the mystery of the predecessor to Institute 749, and revealed the truth about the prehistoric Yu people's guardianship. When the winter solstice bells rang in 1982, the Earth's ley lines were on the verge of going berserk. Nuclear missiles were aimed at Kunlun's nexus, and three factions were locked in a bloody struggle.
Three ordinary men, holding the Dragon Seal formed from the seven steles, spilled their blood at Kunlun. They said that what they had always protected was not the stone steles, but the vast land supported by the bones of the dragon.
In the turbulent late 1970s and early 1980s, they used their own flesh and blood to write a deeply buried epic of guardianship, one that belonged to China.
