In early spring of 1985, in an old brick house in the Hebei countryside, Yin Shuxian, a retired schoolteacher, wrote two characters in cinnabar on red paper: Yin Ran. “Set yourself alight, and illuminate the world.”
This boy, who had so much expected of him, made his way from muddy country paths to a university in the provincial capital. A hand-drawn campus guide won him the student council presidency, and a hand-drawn map of local farm produce impressed Su Wan, an investment banking professional. After graduation, he turned down a lucrative offer to join Hongyuan Group. At twenty-seven, a seven-hundred-million-yuan financing deal made him famous overnight; by thirty, he was earning a million yuan a year. But when the industry hit a cold spell, Hongyuan went bankrupt. He left with nothing and sat on his father's field ridge for three days and nights.
His close friend Tan Songyang came all the way from Beijing, bringing marinated beef and books. He kept Yin company on the threshing ground as they drank late into the night. “Life is like writing a play. There's always a low point before the climax. Get through it, and a new act begins.”
At thirty-three, with Su Wan's help, he founded Randian Technology. Armed with a solid-state battery and a steel nail, he started out in the agricultural machinery market, a sector the giants had overlooked. Ten years later, his company went public on the STAR Market. In his listing speech, he said, “This hand once held my father's at the grain collection station as he was told that first-grade wheat paid eighty-six cents a jin. I was thirteen then.”
This is an epic of perseverance spanning forty-five years: the story of a poor boy who holds on to his original ideals through the ups and downs of the business world, of a brotherhood lasting more than twenty years, and of people who keep moving through the mud without ever letting the fire in their hearts go out. Yin Ran spends half his life proving his grandfather's hopes were not misplaced: no matter how far he goes, he never loses sight of who he truly is.
