The protagonist Lu Chen is a "living ghost" who wanders on the fringes of society. He lives on the "Paralyzed Avenue" in Macau, but is burdened with a "spiritual bill" worth eight million.
The story profoundly records Lu Chen's downward spiral from his initial slight temptation to his addiction to the Internet and overseas gambling. He once used a crazy "stud" to build up eight million false brilliance in three days, and then lost everything in the blink of an eye.
In the abyss of desire, Lu Chen personally destroyed three possibilities of redemption, leading to an irreparable tragedy:
Ye Zi: An uncherished innocent love that represents the anchor of a stable life, who died heartbroken due to his gambling addiction.
Weiwei: The trap of desire appeared when Lu Chen was at his peak. Using emotions to lure him into making bigger bets was the key driver of the collapse of Eight Million.
Lin Lin: The final victim witnessed Lu Chen's evil deeds of misappropriating his parents' "life-saving money", and finally brought his children to complete despair.
What's more serious is that Lu Chen also indirectly led to the complete destruction of the "good big brother" Lao Chen, who was regarded as a moral benchmark. This "spiritual debt" for the loss of dignity and life forced him to record his experience and the destruction of his family he witnessed with "the precision of an accountant checking bills"**.
This is not a story about the return of a prodigal son, but an eternal confession with bloody memories, aiming to reveal the cruel erosion of gambling on human nature, family and the ecology of the bottom of society.
Target word count: Approximately 1 million words.
