Chen Jiang is reborn in 1988 in the Dabashan Mountains. His family has run out of food, and his little sister is swollen with hunger. Fortunately, a volume called the Classic of Mountains and Seas resides in his sea of consciousness. It can identify herbs, recognize spirit beasts, and record talents, but it can't conjure a single cent. If he wants a full stomach, he'll have to earn it himself in the mountains.
He hunts in the mountains and runs timber down the river, trading bear paws for a television and fish runs for a motorcycle. Mountain demons knock on his door at night, water monkeys drag people away, and hanging coffins conceal thousand-year-old mysteries. As he turns mountain goods into a fortune, he also takes on a smuggling ring that hunts mountain spirits, rising from a hungry boy to become the king of mountain produce in Sichuan and Chongqing.
Only when the snow monster of Daxuetang falls and the leyline of the Bashan Mountains opens its eyes does he understand: his grandfather hadn't disappeared all those years ago. He had gone into the mountains. What the mountain gives must, in the end, be returned to it.
