The Shen family of the capital is convicted and exiled to the desolate Death Desert, where everyone faces a desperate shortage of water. Only Shen Yuan, who devoted his previous life to desert water conservancy projects, remains confident. Using the resources at hand, he digs underground rivers and builds water purification devices, tames scorpion swarms for food, and constructs defenses against the horse bandits known as Ghostly Dread and the Sand Hawks. Using water sources and copper-smelting technology as bargaining chips, he forges alliances, introduces a work-point system and copper tokens to establish trade order, and gradually builds a self-sustaining city-state belonging exclusively to the Shen family in the barren desert.