Chapter One: The Ring That Crushed an Elevator

At 3:17 a.m., Lin Ye had his shoulder braced against a grand piano. The black instrument belonged to newlyweds on the twenty-seventh floor of Riverside Mansion. The client had demanded that everything from the bride’s old home be delivered before dawn. When Lin and his partner, Old Huang, rolled the piano into the freight elevator, the load display read 672 kilograms. Normal. At the twelfth floor, the piano sank. No wheel had failed. After nine years as a mover, Lin could tell timber from steel—and either from a drunk man—with his eyes closed. An invisible hand seemed to nail the piano down. Weight poured through its legs as the display raced upward: eight hundred, twelve hundred, nineteen hundred. The cables screamed. “Let go!” Lin shouted.