Reborn in 1980: King of the White Mountains and Black Waters

In the twelfth lunar month of 1980, at Qingshi Village deep in the Changbai Mountains, Lin Jianjun is reborn. In his previous life, he was a special forces soldier who died in a hospital bed. In this life, he is an eighteen-year-old poor hunter with an empty house and a nearly bare grain jar. His body is frail, but his mind is full: wilderness survival, tactical combat, ballistics, and his family’s Xingyi boxing are all still with him. On his first day in the old forest, he bends down to pick up a slingshot. In doing so, he also picks up his life anew. He hunts roe deer and wild boars, takes on the camel-backed bandit, kills leopards, wipes out wolf packs, and brings down a thousand-jin boar king. With a Type 56 rifle, he hunts from the depths of the mountains to beyond the border. His two hunting dogs, Qinglong and Heihu, help him flush out prey, pursue and corner it, and fight alongside him from hunting grounds to game farms, then back to the old forest. As farmland is allocated to households, guns are legally traded, Soviet tractors roll into the village, and treasures left behind by the Anti-Japanese United Army are found, twenty years pass in the blink of an eye. A courtyard house is built, and Qingshi Village becomes a model village. Three things hang on the wall: the boar king’s tusks, an Anti-Japanese United Army flag, and a Type 78 hunting rifle. They represent three paths: fighting, digging, and earning. Snow is still falling outside the window, the lights are still on inside, and the two dogs lie on the doorstep, their tails swishing. Hardcore hunting, Northeast folk customs, brotherhood, and the bond between man and dog. Twenty years in the mountains and forests of the Northeast are all here, in a gunshot and a hound, a meal and a warm kang bed.