Zhao Dezhu, a temporary lumberjack at the Mangcang Ridge forest farm, closed his eyes in bitterness during the great snowstorm when he had gambled away his family fortune and angered his mother to death. When he opened them again, he had returned to that same snowstorm years earlier. This time, carrying forty years of regret, he bound himself to the Mangcang Ridge Hunting Grounds. Starting with an old hunting rifle and a scrawny dog, he hunted in the mountains, set traps for game, gathered ginseng and dug up herbs. He rebuilt his family, which had been on the verge of falling apart, and married the fiancee whose legs had nearly been ruined by the cold.
