In the last years of Dasheng, Chen Yan, a small official in the household, saw his name in the death book.
Overnight, he became a "dead man" recognized by the government - his house was taken over, his property confiscated, and he had no proof of his survival.
But he soon discovered that there were 30,000 disaster victims who were written to death together with him. Some people use the name of the dead to swallow food relief, seize land, and raise private soldiers, turning the living people in a county into numbers that can be written off in the account books.
Since the book can determine life and death, he started with a false account and rewrote the names of living people.
From the Dead Man's County to the troubled world, Chen Yan wants all high-ranking people to understand: people's lives should not be determined only by the strokes of their pen.
