The Yellow River is about to flood, and the old levee is on the verge of collapse.
Cao Jiwu came from Qiuzhi Hall, where he trained in boxing and toughened his body. After years of military service and posts away from home, he has now become a general charged with guarding the flood defenses. But what he guards along the river has never been just the water. There are also layers of officialdom, the accumulated ills of old cases, and people passing the blame.
The old works at Dongwan are hollow and unstable. The floodwaters are surging downstream, and a military order has come down. Everyone wants to keep an escape route open, but he is the one man who cannot retreat.
He can surrender his seal, lose his reputation, or give up his post. But the levee must not break, and the people must not drown.
This is the story of a disciple of the Xinyi boxing school, who stakes all his fighting spirit and his very flesh and blood between a crumbling levee and a raging flood.
This book does not recount his entire life. It focuses on the episode in which he surrenders his seal and guards the flood defenses, revealing a lifetime through a single event.
