Jiang Li, a debt collector, can see what others cannot. Threads hang from everyone's head, and at the other end of each thread is a debt. Sixty-seven-year-old Wei Dehou owes eighty thousand yuan, and his payment is 423 days overdue. The thread above his head passes through the ceiling, stretching between the floors above and below, and trembles faintly. “Some debts aren't for the courts to deal with,” Wei Dehou says. It's not that the courts won't handle them. They simply can't. Jiang Li will come back in three days. But as she is leaving, the old man calls out to her: “There's one above your head, too. A thread. It's very old.”
This novel and its characters are entirely fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental. Do not imitate.