[1980s + Tibetan Plateau + Hoh Xil + Beast Taming + Animals Repay Kindness + Wilderness Powers + Medicine + Anti-Poaching + Ensemble Cast + Heroic Passion + Protection + Tragic Warmth + Transmigration to the Era]
On a snowy night in 1988, Lu Tianye, a doctor branded a rightist, cuts open the belly of a pregnant ewe that’s been shot with his bare hands and saves her three lambs. From then on, fragments of animals’ final moments keep flooding into his mind: a snow leopard brings a bharal as payment for treatment, a black-necked crane crashes into a window to warn of a blizzard, and a golden eagle’s wings knock out a searchlight. Every living creature on the plateau has taken to “mooching” off him.
A disgraced doctor, a group of animals, and a fearless mountain patrol team track a poaching ring through the uninhabited wilderness of Hoh Xil. The animals are his informants, comrades, and unofficial team members. In front of a mountain of bones formed from thousands of Tibetan antelope, he coughs up blood as he retraces seven years of migration memories. The patrol leader makes the ultimate sacrifice, his body leaning against a jeep in a final watchful stance.
He says animals are not tools, but friends. Years later, satellite monitoring reveals that the Tibetan antelope migration stops for a day at the same spot every year: the site of the old clinic where he once worked. Scientists call it “the Tibetan Antelope Satellite.” Only he knows it isn’t a satellite. It’s the animals repaying his kindness.
A heroic ensemble × animals repaying kindness × protecting the Tibetan Plateau: every life deserves to be heard.
