In mid-April 1989, in the days leading up to the infamous Tiananmen Square Massacre, former US Marine Dan Norton was finishing up his year as a professor at Shaanxi Teachers University. Little did he know that in two weeks’ time, he would be sought out by the police under threat of Chinese prison. Accused of engaging in espionage and harboring a fugitive, Dan struggles to balance his military training with his newfound Buddhist practice. Should he bow out of this fight by returning to America—or risk his life by standing with his students? Meanwhile, university students Song Yingying and her boyfriend Gao Mingyue both disobey their fathers’ strict orders to avoid all political activity. Their secret poster campaigns swiftly escalate, and before they know it they’re leading demonstrations, too. Touching on the complexities of ethnic and intergenerational conflicts in China at the time, along with the politics, follows the paths of a professor and his students through the difficult and dangerous choices that could usher in a brighter hope . . . or end their very lives.