The Jiangcheng Underworld: A Quest for Answers on the Riverside

On the banks of the Yangtze in Jiang’an, Jiangcheng, during the 1990s, street thug Chen Huazi lives at the very bottom, in the filthiest muck. He roams the streets on a reckless sense of brotherhood, puts his friends first, and uses brute force to get into trouble. He thinks loyalty and ruthlessness are the only things that can keep him alive, but reality offers nothing but humiliation and misery. A sudden gambling raid lands his friend Siyan in prison in his place, while Chen Huazi is detained, sending his life into a sudden downward spiral.

His brief taste of freedom brings no relief. After another incident, he is sent back to the detention center, where he endures humiliation in the prison’s brutal, survival-of-the-fittest world. Fighting viciously to secure a place for himself, he earns others’ respect, but pays a heavy price in additional prison time. After his release, he finds no fresh start. Instead, local gangster Huangpi Lao Qi bullies him at will, treating him with nothing but contempt and abuse. On a freezing night in the muddy ground by Lianhua Lake, battered from head to toe, Chen Huazi bids farewell to the man who accepted his fate and swears to the lake that he will never again let anyone trample him into the dirt. His determination to turn his life around takes root for good.

In this desperate situation, his brother-in-law, Tong Jianguo, appears and opens a path forward for him. Well versed in the ways of the world and skilled at scheming, Tong Jianguo teaches him to rein in his temper and give up his impatience, leaving behind the brute-force mindset of a street thug. Under his brother-in-law’s guidance, Chen Huazi undergoes a complete transformation, abandoning a life of relying on violence and learning to plan with information and strategy. Armed with Huangpi Lao Qi’s illegal account books, he wields information as a blade. Rather than risking everything in a brute-force fight, he uses cunning to drive off the local gangster, earn his first hard-won fortune, and decisively clear the obstacles in his way.

Rising from years spent in the muck, Chen Huazi completes his first transformation from a nobody at the bottom who fights with his fists into a man who makes his way with his brains.