In the height of summer 2030, climate research center scientist Lin Yan is reborn.
Everyone says, "It's just a fluctuation in the weather." Only he knows that the ten years of rising temperatures are the harbinger of a climate catastrophe that will last two decades. His warning is rejected, and his friends and family mock him for fearmongering. He recalls the words, "Seek truth from facts, and don't indulge in empty talk." He doesn't argue. He gets to work.
He liquidates his assets and anonymously stockpiles supplies in another city. With the help of Shen Ye, a veteran, he opens up supply channels, while engineering student Zhao Lei helps him build an off-grid microgrid. He uncovers the ancient water-management wisdom of the southwestern mountains in his grandfather's handwritten notes. Su Wan, an agronomy graduate, shows up with rare native seeds. As they test-grow them on the balcony, they turn each failure into a growing understanding of one another. A six-person team begins to take shape. "Organize yourselves, and rise on your own." They move from preparing alone to working together.
In the fall and winter of 2032, a supercharged autumn flood followed by a sudden, brutal cold snap sends the city into its first collapse. They are among the first civilians to step forward and organize a rescue effort. After that, they choose a site in the mountains, build dams and reservoirs, improve the soil, and combine wind and solar power. "Self-reliance and hard work." Their base grows from a few farmhouses into a settlement. Typhoons, wildfires, super cold waves, and a permafrost plague arrive one after another. The old order crumbles, and the factions beyond their borders descend into a lawless jungle. Holding fast to their belief in "serving the people," they defend the last boundaries of civilization: stand alone and you die; survive together and you live.
From secret preparations to a regional community of civilization, from comrades-in-arms to partners, Lin Yan and Su Wan spend twenty years proving that "the people, and only the people, are the driving force behind the creation of world history." The apocalypse is not the end, but the starting point of a new era of civilization. So long as the flame is kept alive, the land will one day...
