In the 1990s, in Tianshui County, Ma Xiaowei, the richest man’s son, wakes up in a bed at the September Ninth Nightclub. There’s a woman beside him, and someone he can’t afford to cross outside the door.
A fake IOU, a fake property deed, and two poor brothers. Everyone owes someone else: money, a life, or a debt of gratitude they’ll never repay.
Ma Xiaowei thinks he’s fooling everyone else. In truth, they’re fooling him, too. His father disowns him, one of his fingers gets chopped off, and the IOU he gets back is only a photocopy.
A pair of dim-witted kidnappers abduct the richest man’s son, only to discover afterward that this “richest man’s son” is even poorer than the kidnappers themselves.
But in Tianshui County, that’s nothing. The floor manager at the September Ninth falls from the fourth floor, and the Public Security Bureau calls it suicide. A bespectacled college student walks down the street, and everyone who sees him praises him for being quiet and well-behaved.
No one knows he’s already made a list in his head.
The county town is small, and everyone is caught up in the game. No one gets to walk away unscathed.
