Winter of the third year of Jinghe under the Dayong dynasty. A once-in-a-century blizzard has struck Mobei. Nearly half of the 1,800 people of the Canglang Tribe have frozen or starved to death or been injured, and their food stores will last only ten more days.
Sixteen-year-old young lord Suhe Balu wakes on the brink of freezing to death with the soul of Lin Chen, an agricultural science PhD, inside him, along with a System called “Seeds of Civilization.” On a snowfield twenty degrees below zero, he leads his people in digging through three feet of frozen earth to find fresh water, builds the grasslands' first winter greenhouse from sheepskin and horse manure, tames the totemic Azure Wolf King with his bare hands, and exposes the High Shaman's poisoning plot in front of everyone. From the brink of annihilation, he carves out a path to survival.
But survival is only the beginning. He wipes out the eight hundred Black Wolf cavalrymen who launch a nighttime raid on the royal camp. Then he dismantles the encirclement by the Wild Wolf, Black Wind, and Red Wolf tribes, one by one, using salt, blades, and grain as bargaining chips. By the banks of the Qile River, he wins over surrendered soldiers, smelts iron, fires bricks, and builds a city wall, planting the first stake in the Mobei grasslands with just three hundred survivors. At the Nadam Festival, he takes first place in horse racing, scores a perfect mark in archery, and wins the wrestling competition, making the entire grasslands remember the name of the Canglang Tribe.
The grassland alliance of Temur Khan of the Golden Tent Tribe hangs over him like a blade poised above his head. Suhe Balu remains calm, farming as he sharpens his weapons. With the broad perspective of someone who has transmigrated and his modern knowledge, he forges a dying sick wolf into a new overlord of the central grasslands, one no one dares underestimate.
When the fields on both banks of the Qile River stretch as far as the eye can see, smoke rises from the brick houses, and the blades of cavalry swords catch the morning sun, the seeds of civilization have already begun to burn across the snowfields.
