The only sun in Huayu

The Hoh Xil wilderness.

The sky was clear and blue, without a trace of impurity.

On the ancient wilderness, the wind swept through the withered grass, emitting a low, mournful sound.

A Tibetan antelope raises its head alertly, its graceful lines shimmering in the sunlight.

High in the sky, a black dot rapidly magnifies.

It was a falcon, its eyes sharp as knives, locked onto its prey below.

Dive!

The beauty of speed and power is on full display; it is the most primal law of survival in nature.

A rapid cut shows the moment an eagle's claws seize a Tibetan antelope, the claws digging into its fur, the antelope struggling, and dust rising.

The law of the jungle, where the strong prey on the weak, unfolds silently and cruelly.

However, this was just a trap. Huang Bo's character, a poacher and assassin, appeared under a gray-yellow canvas that was almost the same color as the wasteland, quickly pulling on a rope.

The eagle, seemingly the king of the sky, has been captured.

The poacher emerged from his hiding place, and a bag fell from the sky, precisely covering the falcon that had just finished its hunt.

The eagle struggled violently, its feathers flying everywhere, and it let out a sharp cry.

The poacher, a numb yet practiced grin on his face, roughly shoved the falcon into a small cage.

The poachers walked over, stepped out of the tent, and saw the ground littered with bird carcasses.

He happily got into the car, made a phone call, compared the pictures, and out of the corner of his eye saw a lit cigarette butt on the hood.

Realizing someone was there, he instinctively reached for his gun.

Kaka!

The sound of a safety release echoed across the desolate wilderness, and the poacher raised his hand.

The camera then pans to show law enforcement officers with serious expressions.

The seemingly formidable poacher was captured by law enforcement.

The dilapidated vehicle drove across the wasteland, bearing faded law enforcement markings, but without any trace of time or location.

As law enforcement officers drove along the road with the poacher in custody, they cautiously glanced behind them through their rearview mirror.

The poacher wanted cigarettes, so he first bribed him, then told the fallacy that good people don't necessarily get good rewards.

A voice came from the walkie-talkie.

In a flash.

A larger SUV suddenly accelerated, roaring like a beast, and slammed into the driver's seat of the jeep.

The jeep went out of control and rolled over, kicking up clouds of dust.

The sound of shattering glass and twisting metal was deafening.

The dust has settled.

Kaka!

The SUV was parked nearby. The poacher got out, revealing his leg with a steel brace. He walked steadily to the overturned jeep.

Seemingly powerful law enforcement officers were murdered by criminals.

The law enforcement officer's face was covered in blood, half of his body was sticking out of the car, and he was holding a walkie-talkie.

The poaching leader, expressionless, headed straight for the cage containing the falcon inside the car.

Once the poacher recovered, he went to find his gun and complained about why his boss had crashed the car.

A voice came from the walkie-talkie, and the poaching leader grabbed the walkie-talkie's cord and tore it off.

The poacher accidentally pulled the trigger; the gunshot echoed briefly and hollowly across the wilderness.

The poaching boss ordered his men to pick up the cages, he called the police, and got back into his SUV.

The wasteland returned to deathly silence, leaving only the twisted wreckage of the vehicle and a streak of blood, which were quickly swallowed up by the wind and sand.

The law of the jungle, which preys on the weak, extends from nature to humanity, and is even more ruthless.

The screen went black, and the words "Director Shen Shandeng's work" appeared.

Then, Xu Zheng, who plays the male lead lawyer Pan Xiao, enters the scene.

Under the scorching sun of the Gobi Desert, after a long and arduous journey, Pan Xiao finally arrived at the desolate prison.

Pan Xiao, carrying a briefcase, walked into the meeting room, looking travel-worn, and met the poaching boss.

After a series of nonsensical conversations, the scene shifts to the courtroom.

Pan Xiao sat at the defense table.

The poaching boss, his hands cuffed, was expressionless, his eyes sharp and cold like an eagle's, staring straight at everyone.

Pan Xiao exploited the incomplete chain of evidence, seized upon a weakness, and directly overturned the entire charge.

He successfully helped the leader of a gang that poached the Altai falcon, a rare bird in the country, clear his name.

Upon arriving at the restaurant, the small town's restaurant was filled with the smell of cooking oil and the gamey odor of mutton.

Pan Xiao, a shrewd but profit-driven man, and a poaching boss who glorifies violence, clash over the final payment.

Pan Xiao wore a shrewd smile, but his eyes already betrayed his impatience.

He needs to get the final payment as soon as possible and leave this awful place.

The poacher leader, on the other hand, was leisurely playing with his knife. He believed in violence and looked at Pan Xiao with a hint of mockery, clearly intending to delay paying the money.

Pan Xiao's patience ran out, and the smile on his face disappeared.

The poaching boss's weapon is violence, while Pan Xiao's weapon is the rules of the civilized world, directly threatening the poaching boss.

In the end, Pan Xiao picked up the car keys on the table and decided to drive away the red sedan as collateral.

A straight highway stretches across the boundless Gobi Desert.

On both sides are endless gravel and low camel thorns.

On the desolate highway, Pan Xiao's journey was not smooth from the start.

An argument broke out between the two truck drivers because one of them spat on the other's vehicle. He stopped the truck and wiped the spit off with his hat, while the older brother of the truck driver urinated directly into his driver's seat.

Pan Xiao wanted to call the police, but found there was no signal.

This is an uninhabited Gobi Desert.

On the road, both vehicles were overtaking each other, and then the truck driver's brother smashed his window with a bottle.

Just as his anger was still simmering, a figure suddenly darted out from in front of him, attempting to stop the car. However, his windshield was shattered, distorting his vision.

Caught off guard, I jerked the steering wheel, but still heard a muffled thud and felt the wheels bounce.

Pan Xiao, still shaken, stopped the car and turned around to see a figure lying in the middle of the road, curled up in pain.

Pan Xiao's face turned deathly pale instantly, his lips trembled slightly, and he hurriedly got out of the car to check.

He had no idea that the person he had hit was the assassin sent by the poaching boss to kill him and silence him.

The "Eight Nations" gas station lit up with dim lights in the twilight, like an abrupt and eerie patch on the Gobi Desert.

Pan Xiaoqiang remained calm and bargained with the shrewd and difficult stationmaster, who had a domineering smile on his face.

The mentally challenged son stood to the side, grinning foolishly, his eyes vacant and unsettling.

The requirement for bundled sales made Pan Xiao even more irritable.

It was here that he met Jiaojiao, a prostitute who had been trafficked to this place and forced to work as a sex worker.

The other party immediately took off his clothes, but Pan Xiao had no time for anything else; his mind was entirely focused on how to deal with the hot potato in the trunk.

Pan Xiao wanted to use oil to destroy the body of the poacher and cover up his crime.

He poured out the gasoline, only to find there was no source of fire. Frustrated, he cursed under his breath and had no choice but to return to the gas station.

Just then, the two truck drivers who had clashed with him earlier caught up with him, and the situation instantly became critical.

He finally managed to shake off the harassment and drove away, only to find that Jiaojiao had somehow gotten into his car and was looking at him in fear.

At this moment, the poaching boss also came in person, determined to retrieve the falcon and kill all those who knew the truth.

The poaching boss himself drove up, his face like a cold rock under the headlights, his eyes even more ferocious than when he was in prison.

He found the enigmatic owner of the gas station.

"Fifty, I'll keep it a secret." The proprietress used the same trick again, trying to control the gang leader.

After a few questions and answers, he appeared patient on the surface, but in reality, violence was brewing.

Before leaving, the gang leader stepped on the gas and ran over the landlady, killing her instantly. His actions were swift and decisive, without the slightest hesitation.

Pan Xiao, having just breathed a sigh of relief upon discovering that the assassin in the trunk was still alive, was immediately confronted with a gun pointed at him.

Bang bang!

Pan Xiao was shot in the leg, and the intense pain almost made him faint.

Under duress from the assassin, he struggled to pour gasoline on himself, preparing to set himself on fire.

At the critical moment, the truck driver brothers arrived, temporarily disrupting the situation.

The assassin killed one, and another one drove up in a truck. The assassin ran out of bullets.

After the three-way battle, the assassin left with Jiao Jiao, while Pan Xiao escaped alone.

On the way, they encountered a gang leader who was looking for a falcon.

the other side.

The assassin and Jiaojiao were caught up by the father and son at the gas station. The assassin threatened the gas station owner with a gun, and also threatened the mentally challenged son.

"You come!"

"Go ahead and smash it!"

Unexpectedly, this fool had no concept of fear and was killed with a hammer.

"you're so dumb!"

The foolish son acted recklessly, his movements clumsy yet deadly.

The gas station owner rode off on horseback, accompanied by a falcon.

Let the silly son and Jiaojiao use horses to pull the car back.

The gang leader was driving along a short stretch of rudimentary road when he encountered Jiao Jiao's mentally challenged son, who had been tied up.

He got out of the car, glanced coldly at the corpses of his men in the trunk, his face expressionless, only concerned with the whereabouts of Falcon.

Having confirmed that the falcon was in the hands of the gas station owner, the mob boss decided to kill his mentally challenged son.

The car headlights cleaved through everything on the boundless Gobi Desert.

In the middle of the road, the foolish son still held up the hammer.

The car headlights flashed across the bewildered yet stubborn face of the simple-minded son.

Bang!
Directly kill.

The gang leader continued to try to kill Jiao Jiao to silence her, and Pan Xiao pleaded for her life, but was knocked unconscious by the gang leader's punch.

The gang leader calmly called the police using a satellite phone, staged the scene, and created the illusion that Pan Xiao hit someone and then died inside the car.

Seeing this, Jiaojiao tried to save Pan Xiao's life with her savings, but the gang leader scoffed at her.

In a moment of desperation, Jiaojiao stuffed a lighter into the car's exhaust pipe.

This action saved Pan Xiao's life, preventing him from dying.

Gas station.

The boss returned, carrying a falcon and leading a horse.

When Jiao Jiao, who was struggling in the back seat of the pickup truck, was distracted, the gang leader slit her throat from behind.

The falconer instructed the gang leader to deal with the people on the ground first. Pan Xiao received a call from the publishing house, instructing them to call the police, but it was clear that the other side was unaware of the situation.

However, the noise alerted the group that was about to kill him to silence him. Pan Xiao then used a counter-espionage tactic, claiming that Teacher Hei was an undercover agent. This made the buyer suspicious. Pan Xiao then asked the buyer to replay the phone in the car, since the last call the gang leader made to the police was to 110.

The two sides, one black and one black, are locked in a fierce battle.

Pan Xiao escaped with Jiao Jiao, but the gang leader eventually killed both buyers and then drove his car into them.

The surviving truck driver's brother, driving his truck, retaliated in kind, using the gangster's most common method of killing to ram the pickup truck.

The driver asked Jiaojiao to get the first-aid kit, gave Pan Xiao a cigarette, and handed him the lighter he had used to burn his truck, telling him not to burn people and vehicles anymore.

Bang!
The gunshot rang out, and the driver's brother, being incompetent, failed to kill the gang leader.

The gang leader, his face swollen, killed the truck driver's brother and then wanted to kill Jiaojiao first.

At this moment, Pan Xiao released the falcon, attracting the attention of the gang leader.

They threw stacks of money into the fire and burned them, using the burning of the money to threaten the gang leader into releasing Jiaojiao.

"I'll make you watch her die."

The gang leader wanted Pan Xiao to watch Jiao Jiao die, so he drove a gas station truck loaded with oil tankers and chased after Jiao Jiao.

Jiaojiao ran away frantically, her face as pale as paper.

The Gobi Desert is a rugged yellow.

The truck sped wildly down the road like a wounded beast, and Pan Xiao, covered in injuries, took out the lighter that the truck driver had left him.

With blood in his mouth, Pan Xiao suddenly revealed a strange smile.

It was a mixture of relief, resignation, and a hint of self-mockery.

It seemed as if, in a fleeting moment, a vivid image of myself, full of vigor and confidence, flashed through my mind in court.

He set the car on fire.

The gang leader stared in horror, a look of disbelief flashing across his eyes for the first time, but it was too late.

The fire raged fiercely.

Bang!
The truck exploded with a deafening roar that echoed across the wilderness, followed by an even louder rumble, then disintegrated, sending numerous fuel tanks flying.
It eventually exploded into a huge fireball, with thick smoke and flames shooting into the sky.

Jiaojiao staggered as she climbed out of the ditch by the roadside, looking back at the flames that had engulfed Pan Xiao. Tears mixed with sand and dust, leaving two deep furrows on her face.

He walked along the road, looking lost and dejected.

The sound of a car approached from afar.

A dusty, muddy old pickup truck slowly drove up the road and finally stopped not far from her.

Jiaojiao, like a frightened rabbit, instinctively backed away, her eyes filled with fear.

The car door opens.

A middle-aged local man with a dark complexion, wearing an ordinary old jacket, got off the bus.

He looked weathered, but his eyes were kind.

Seeing Jiaojiao's miserable state, he paused for a moment, then looked concerned and quickly walked over.

The camera zoomed in on Jiao Jiao's terrified eyes as she instinctively protected herself.

The middle-aged man, speaking with a heavy accent, said, "Oh my! What happened to you, young lady? Did your car break down like those other hikers? Or did you get separated from them? I've told you so many times, you can't just wander around in this place, but you never listen."

The middle-aged man noticed, paused, and pointed to his chest.

The camera focuses on the man's chest, where an old but well-worn Party emblem is pinned, reflecting a warm glow in the rising sun.

Jiaojiao was stunned for a moment, then breathed a sigh of relief without saying a word.

The badge seemed like a ray of light, piercing through her extreme fear.

There was the joy of seeing a savior, but even more so, there was the immense sense of security of being back in the human world.

Her tense nerves suddenly relaxed, and her body went limp.

The uncle gave her a bottle of water and a small bread roll.

Bang.

The uncle squeezed the small bread roll until it burst open, but the sound made Jiao Jiao mistake it for a gunshot, and she instinctively protected herself.

Realizing he was safe, he froze again.

The uncle said, "Eat something first."

inside the car.

Jiaojiao sat in the passenger seat as the pickup truck bumped along.

The uncle's ramblings and complaints about how unruly tourists cause trouble for the locals.

To Jiaojiao, these complaints were not reproaches, but rather sounds full of warmth and genuine beauty.

Every word pulled her back from that wild, no-man's-land.

The scenery outside the car window changed subtly. The Gobi Desert gradually receded, revealing low-lying vegetation, then telephone poles, and finally, the outlines of low-lying houses in the distance.

Listening to the uncle's nagging and drinking water, Jiao Jiao's tears suddenly burst forth without warning.

First, it was a silent slump, then it turned into suppressed sobs, and finally, it was a loud, heart-wrenching cry.

It was as if they wanted to cry out all the fear, despair, and grievances they had endured in the darkness.

The middle-aged man was at a loss: "Hey? What's wrong? Why are you crying? It's not a big deal! It's good that you're alright! Don't cry, don't cry."

The more clumsy he tried to comfort her, the harder Jiao Jiao cried.

Empty mirror.

The pickup truck sped past the roadside.

The car radio broadcast: "Warmly celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China."
Just then, a large, eye-catching billboard flashed by.

One says "1949," the other "2009," their red backgrounds and yellow lettering shining brightly in the morning sun.

Pickups have been around since 1949 and are now heading into 2009.

The camera pans to the background, an empty shot, an even more ethereal distant view, seemingly representing the road before 1949.

That was the road we came from, also a no-man's land, but it has been left behind.

The pickup truck drove through an area, and in the distance was a Hope Primary School.

The camera pans up, following the sound of children reading aloud, past the school, past the gradually appearing city, and finally overlooks this vast land.

The desolation of the no-man's-land has been left far behind, and what lies before us is a world bathed in the dawn of a new China, full of vitality and order.

Easter eggs in the movie.

Jiaojiao's voice-over began to play.

"I thought it was a dream, but it wasn't a dream."

Jiaojiao, carrying the portrait, appeared in a library to look up information.

Shen Shandeng, who was acting as the caretaker, gave her a newspaper and told her a story about a poaching gang during the Republic of China era.

Jiaojiao was puzzled and asked, "Were there poachers of falcons back in the Republic of China era?"
Shen Shandeng joked that there were still people poaching giant pandas during the Republic of China era.

After the movie ended, Shen Shandeng asked Marco Müller, "Old Marco, is Venice going to take it over?" (End of Chapter)