An old man, dressed in rags, sits on a birch wood stump in front of a dilapidated house. He takes a sip of homemade liquor, puffs on a strong cigarette, and squints his eyes, gazing at the sunset about to fall into the Changbai Mountains. He says to a child of about six or seven years old who is playing with two dogs, one black and one white, beside him: "Fusheng, the creature that the Northeast tiger fears most is not the thick-skinned black bear, nor the 600-jin wild boar king, but the mountain dog that has gone up the mountain." Many years later, the old man...