Liu Hao, a 35-year-old man, was weighed down by the pressures of raising a child and paying a mortgage, and had just lost his job. After seeing a suggestive text from his wife’s boss, he was consumed with jealousy. He argued with his wife, then, utterly despondent, jumped into a river and killed himself. But unlike what Liu Hao had imagined, death brought him no true release. The underworld constable, who was in charge of the dead in that region, was furious and took Liu Hao straight to the land of the dead, intending to cast him into hell. After seeing how terrifying the underworld was, Liu Hao deeply regretted what he had done. To punish him, the constable made Liu Hao be reborn 24 times, each time into the body of someone on the verge of death. The only way to find release was to live well as the person he had been reborn as. In the end, Liu Hao came to understand the preciousness of life. During his final rebirth, in his mother’s home province, he felt a mother’s longing for her lost son. He realized that the person who cared for him most in the world was his mother, and he lived on with a heart full of remorse.
