In 1950, in Kaoshan Village, Songjiang Province, Northland.
The wind cut like a blade of ice, and the snow fell like shattered bone. Bu Nian had his rations withheld by his grandmother, Zhao, and was driven into a drafty earthen hut. He took his last breath, beset by hunger and cold. But a modern soul arrived with the “Northland Spirit Spring” and, at the brink of death, awakened an ancestral secret realm: a spring that could bring all things to life, and an unyielding spirit capable of guarding the land.
The ice in the hut melted, and withered trees sprouted. With his own hands, he grew potatoes weighing eight and a half jin with the Spirit Spring, striking the first spark of life into the frozen earth.
Zhao was as greedy as a demon, his cousin as vicious as a wolf, and they kept coming at him with carrying poles and dung forks. He met them with a cold stare. They slipped on the frozen ground and lost their front teeth. His awful relatives fled in a heap, finally learning what it meant to bring ruin upon themselves.
From then on, Bu Nian established a cooperative and reclaimed the Northland. Old hunter Grandpa He San protected him with his rifle, while the beautiful educated youth Lin Wanqiu joined him, keeping her secrets close. The miracle of harvesting five thousand jin from a single mu shook the provincial capital, but it also drew the gaze of shadowy forces from beyond the border.
The Spirit Spring flows, and all things flourish. When I set my mind to it, I shall guard the Northland!
Others transmigrate to enjoy a comfortable life. Bu Nian’s hard-fought life is about turning this bitterly cold wasteland into the granary of the frontier and protecting the lights in every home across the land!
