At Zhangcheng No. 7 Middle School, a place where all kinds of people mixed, five students who should never have crossed paths found their fates intertwined by a brutal act of bullying.
· Chai Jun lives up to his name, “Jun,” with his cold, forbidding nature. He believes in the law of the jungle: a natural leader and a weapon in human form.
· Cao Mu is as inscrutable as dusk. His eyes behind his glasses are forever unreadable, and no one knows whether the next thing he hands you will be an answer or a bloodied knife.
· Wang Lei is forthright and courageous, putting loyalty first. He throws a punch only to protect the brothers he has chosen.
· Wan Xin chases profit above all. He believes money is the only true passport, and moves gracefully along the boundary between rules and desire.
· Xie Ling is graceful yet unfathomable, the perfect senior who always wears a gentle smile, and the one secretly putting a period to his opponents’ fates.
When their lives are on the line, the boys swear a blood oath, and the Five Brothers Hall is born. They think their sworn brotherhood can withstand any storm, never realizing that fate has already set a price on its gifts.
From school to society, from classroom desks to gang territory. When pure brotherhood collides with unchecked lust for power, and youthful passion is stained by money and betrayal, they spend five years learning about their classmates, but ten years, perhaps even a lifetime, learning about human nature and the underworld.
When the final choice arrives, those standing on opposite sides finally realize that the schooldays oath, “We live and die together,” must be proven one by one with the hottest blood.
This is an elegy to the underworld, written in the language of youth, and a cruel coming-of-age story about human nature, power, and redemption.
