After the events at Li Fuling’s family home over the summer, Jiang Ke is barely into his senior year when Professor Wei, the advisor for his thesis, goes missing. Jiang Ke is forced to accompany Li Fuling to a remote village in the Shennongjia wilderness. There, they encounter an expedition team from another prestigious university. After coaxing information out of them, Li Fuling learns that they plan to explore the forbidden zone of Shennongjia, known as the Human Cave! Professor Wei disappeared in that very zone, so Li Fuling decides to take Jiang Ke along with the expedition team. After enduring life-and-death dangers and a grueling trek, they finally reach the Human Cave in the forbidden zone. But the eerie events are only just beginning. As they explore the bizarre depths of the cave, danger draws closer with every step. The sudden disappearance of their leader, a guide who returns from the dead, a shriek from a strange shadow in the dark, piles of bones and peculiar creatures beneath an underground river, and the discovery of the astonishing tomb of Wang Mang, the usurper who seized the Han throne... All of it challenges their understanding of the world.
The pacing is slow, the plot is clichéd, and the main character is unlikable.