In the chaos of the second year of Jingkang, war ravaged the land, while military disasters and eerie horrors spread side by side. A young man called Mud Loach, later known as Sun Wuyang, was framed and thrown into Lin'an Prefecture's prison. He secretly sharpened iron, waiting for a chance to survive, but when men from the Palace Commandery came to take charge of the prison, danger suddenly closed in. Later, he fled with fellow prisoners Zhao Shitou, Xiao Qi, A Liang, Meng Da, A Qing, and the others. In late autumn, they spent the night in an open grain-drying yard. Frost chilled them to the bone, and they were exhausted in body and mind. In the darkness, each carried private worries. The companions eyed one another with wary suspicion, yet shared a fragile bond forged in desperation. In a world where human lives were worth no more than blades of grass, they had to evade the ravages of war while staying alert to hidden, unknown evils.
