Following the Marco Polo Bridge Incident in 1937, Japanese troops entered Zhangjiakou, the northern gateway to Beijing on August 20 and fully occupied the city by August 27. Eighty-five years after enduring the ravages of war, in 2022, Zhangjiakou stepped onto the world stage as one of the host cities of the Winter Olympics. Today, it is leveraging the legacy of the Olympic Games to boost sports-tourism integration and developing its ice and snow equipment industry, becoming a key hub in China's ice and snow economy. From hardship to hope, Zhangjiakou is forging a bright future.