By Cai Jun（蔡骏）
Original Title: 地狱变
First Published: 2012-06
Subject: FICTION / Thrillers
Pages: 451 | Paperback
Description
10.12 pm. After a violent bout of shaking, the Future Dreams building swiftly plummets deep into the earth. Only twenty-three people are left alive the catastrophe without light or water, their oxygen supply rapidly depleting. After seven days, a search party finally rescues these unfortunate souls from “hell”. Only six of them are still alive. All the indications are that the others were murdered, but the final six survivors seem determined to maintain their silence. What happened during that week underground?
Legendary police investigator Ye Xiao tirelessly delves into all possible scenarios of the darkest, most cruel murders that could have taken place deep beneath the surface of the earth, sifting through the many Rashomon-like lies to piece together the truth behind the “Hell Screen murders”. Yet far underground, amidst humankind’s coldest existence, scene after scene of “the end of humanity” unfolds, more hell-like than hell itself, filling him with doubt. Even if the truth were eventually uncovered and the case solved, might it foretell an even worse disaster awaiting the human race?
Life is more like hell than hell itself.
English translation available.
About Author
Cai Jun is one of China’s most successful suspense novelists, as well as the chief editor of the magazine and website Suspense World. He has published more than twenty novels, including 120 Days of Surveillance, River of Life and Death, Time Flies When You’re Killing People, The Mortal World, Mysteries of Heaven and The Butterfly Cemetery, etc. His most recent story, The Longest Night, has trended on Weibo social media for several months, with more than 250 million readers.
As of 2015, Mr. Cai’s total sales volume exceeded 12 million books; this also marked his thirteenth year in a row of being China’s top-selling suspense writer. With his unconstrained imagination, gripping scenarios and meticulously-plotted mysteries, he has acquired millions of fans from every Chinese-speaking country, and also been translated into many languages, including English, Russian, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese. A number of Mr. Cai’s stories have been adapted for film or television, including The Curse, The Nineteenth Level of Hell, Inn at an Abandoned Village, Condo at an Abandoned Village, and Time Flies When You’re Killing People. Others, including Hell Screen, are in development, and will soon be seen on the silver screen