Zhang Ye, a “life consultant” struggling to keep up with rent and management fees, is visited by Su Wan, a beauty in a qipao, who offers him a million-yuan job: find a naturally fat man whose belly can serve as a pillow. The huge sum seems like a lifeline, but Su Wan's strangely short shadow and drifting gait, along with a mysterious old man's peachwood “warding” plaque and his warning that “you're not looking for a person, but a ‘vessel,’” cast an eerie shadow over the job. When Wang Lei, who fits the requirements, contacts Zhang Ye of his own accord and asks for no payment, the address turns out to be in the western part of the city, exactly where the old man warned him not to go. Torn between financial desperation and unknown danger, Zhang Ye chooses to step into the trap. Meanwhile, beneath the river in the painting Solitary Angler on a Cold River in his office, an even more chilling secret is beginning to surface.
