In 1983, in the frigid city of Northeast China, Zhao Tiejun's father died in a steel mill, his mother was bedridden with illness, and he couldn't scrape together ten yuan. He didn't want trouble. He just wanted to stay alive. But in those days, staying alive was a battle in itself. From a stall in the open-air market to wholesale trade shipping northern goods south, from the frigid city to Shenzhen, he clawed his way up from the mud, one step at a time. Not to become a kingpin, but to make sure the brothers who followed him had food on the table. The locals later called him "Northeast Kid." He just smiled and didn't deny it.
