Synopsis of Under the Red Cotton Tree
This is a story about sacrifice, betrayal, and redemption.
In the winter of 1998, eighteen-year-old Beihai native Zhang Liang enlisted in the army. Selected for a special forces unit, he became a reconnaissance soldier. Over the next five years, he and his four closest comrades, Liu Big Head, Li Hongqi, Sun Jianguo, and Old Wu, carried out countless dangerous missions along the border. One by one, all four were killed, leaving Zhang Liang the sole survivor.
In 2003, Zhang Liang left the army, only to receive a new secret assignment: return to his hometown of Beihai posing as a recently released convict and infiltrate the local drug trafficking network. He gradually closed in on drug lord Brother Kun, earning his trust with his exceptional military skills and steady temperament.
The mission was far more complicated than he had imagined. To trace the source of the drugs, Zhang Liang was sent to Myanmar, where he came face-to-face with an even bigger drug lord known as the General. There, he met the General's adopted daughter, Aya, a young woman with a cold gaze and a mysterious past. Aya's true identity was astonishingly tied to a mission Zhang Liang had carried out five years earlier: he had killed seven people, including Aya's younger brother, but had also saved her nephew.
Aya chose not to seek revenge. Instead, she allied herself with Zhang Liang. Their common enemy was the General, the man who had killed her younger brother and her older sister. She had spent five years lying low, waiting for a chance to destroy him once and for all.
In the autumn of 2004, Zhang Liang entered Myanmar again. With Aya's help, he obtained a crucial list recording all of the General's operatives in China, including Brother Kun.
