Young Zhang Ergou is bullied by his relatives and drifts into a bitter, cold snowy mountain. By chance, he obtains a yellow-skinned spirit gourd concealing profound mysteries, beginning his path of counterattack. Using spiritual water to grow crops and refine medicine, he passes the military examination for military scholar, maneuvers among aristocratic families, evil cultivators, and government officials, guards Shekou Mountain, breaks into the underground black market, rescues trapped laborers, protects his fellow villagers during a severe drought year, and relies on his own resilience to grow from a bottom-tier tenant farmer into an independent cultivator.