In the late autumn of 1896, Zhu Hao, a 16-year-old history contestant, was reborn as a child of a landlord in Liaoyang, but was kidnapped by a group of bandits on his way back to his hometown. The bearded leader at the head was named Zhang Zuolin.
Carrying the memories of his past life and witnessing the devastation of Sino-Japanese War, Zhu Hao was unwilling to be just a meat ticket to be redeemed.
Surviving in the bandits' den, he offered up accounts, planned robberies, and used modern thinking to transform reckless gangs. He also set his sights on the invading Japanese merchants and the Tsarist Russian army - using the name of a bandit to save the country.
From meat tickets to sworn brothers, from accountant to general counselor of the Fengxi faction, Zhu Hao became the most special "shadow" behind Zhang Zuolin.
The proceeds from looting were turned into machine tools for arsenals, teaching materials for secret schools, and medicines sent outside the customs.
He seized the light in the darkness and paved the road in the mud, but he also walked towards his destiny step by step through intrigues, betrayal and sacrifice.
This is a legend of troubled times in which a time traveler and the future king of the Northeast achieve mutual success and become both enemies and friends; it is also a tragic epic in which a beacon was lit by extraordinary means in an era of catastrophe, but was eventually swallowed up by the torrent of the times.
When the snow fell in 1932, no one remembered his name; only his stolen fire was still burning on the black earth.
