Living in an Empty Coffin

There is a "substitute ditch" deep in the mountains of western Hunan, where villagers have been engaged in an underworld business - "substitute work" for generations. The so-called substitute life is to use the flesh and blood of a living person to raise a "substitute" and let the substitute die in place of the original person. There is an iron rule in the ditch: Anyone who enters the ditch must find his or her "substitute" within seven days and destroy it. Otherwise, at sunset on the seventh day, your life will be taken away by the substitute. This novel and its characters are purely fictitious. Any similarity is purely coincidental and should not be imitated.