Lin Zhao never dreamed that a poor young man with a degree in funeral services would one day get mixed up with “hell money” like this.
Three months after his grandfather died, he returned to the county town to take over the dilapidated Lin Family Funeral Goods Shop. He planned to sell it to pay off his student loans, but found a note in the ledger. It was in his own handwriting, and said something he had no memory of writing: Every hell note you give away must be collected within forty-nine days. Otherwise, the debtor won’t be the only one to die.
The hell money wasn’t ordinary paper cash for the dead. Printed with “Underworld Currency,” its serial numbers matched the ID numbers of people who had died unnatural deaths in the county over the past forty years. Denominations ranged from ten thousand to one hundred million, and every note was used to extend the life of someone still living. His grandfather had been the “fate bank” beneath this small county town, lending lives, collecting debts, and maintaining the balance between life and death for forty years.
Lin Zhao was forced to take over the mess. Forty-seven hell notes were still out in the world, and he had forty-seven karmic debts to collect. But things were nowhere near as simple as he’d imagined. Some people refused to pay, others wanted to extend their lives even longer, and someone who had uncovered the secret of the hell money was planning to steal the ledger. Meanwhile, a limping man named Old Zheng was recklessly issuing new notes and throwing the entire county’s order of life and death into chaos.
Even stranger, Lin Zhao discovered that he was listed in the ledger too. He was supposed to have been stillborn, but his grandfather had bought him back from the King of Hell with a hell note worth one hundred million.
He has only twenty-eight days, forty-seven hell notes, and the dark history of a county town spanning forty years.
