Autumn, 1935, on Desheng Street in Tianjin. Shen Yunkai, the eighteen-year-old heir to Chang Geng Martial Arts Hall, was cheerful and chivalrous. He thought the world would always be made up of neighbors, temple fairs, and a wrestling match the next day.
A year later, the Japanese invaders slaughtered his family. His father died defending the door with a broken gun. His mother and little sister perished in the flames. Carrying a broken gun, a Miao saber, and accompanied by two brothers, Shen Yunkai crawled out through a tunnel and began a long journey of exile and revenge.
He killed puppet soldiers and hated himself. Beneath the green canopy of sorghum fields, he saw the people's suffering. By the light of a literacy class, he wrote the crooked character for "revenge." Only after meeting people like the storyteller Zhou Mingyuan, the teacher He Xiuying, and the rifle-bearing Fang Zhiheng did he gradually understand: one person's fists and feet cannot save a nation. Only when tens of millions stand together can the character for "revenge" be changed to "liberation."
This is the story of a northern martial artist who, amid the nation's peril, comes to understand anew the meaning of martial arts, chivalry, revenge, country, people, and self.
