Borrowing Yin Soldiers

The story depicts all kinds of supernatural and ghostly events that take place in a remote, backward mountain village in Jiangxi during the 1980s, where life is still governed by a deeply entrenched clan-based feudal system.

The story begins when Zhao Tuo, a Qin general, is ordered to pacify Lingnan. He serves twice as a deputy commander, then succeeds after four years of effort, bringing Lingnan into the territory of the Qin Dynasty. After the Qin falls, Zhao Tuo seizes the opportunity to annex Guilin Commandery and Xiang Commandery, founding the Nanyue Kingdom. During the campaign to pacify Lingnan, a unit strays into a forest in Jiangxi, a wild and desolate region thick with miasma, and mysteriously vanishes. After Zhao Tuo’s death, the Han Dynasty destroys Nanyue. His descendants take half of a military tally and spend their lives searching Jiangxi for the lost troops. In the late Qing and early Republican era, a couple discovers the Qin soldiers, who have become yin soldiers, near Xing Village. They appear only once every 120 years. But the time is not right: the yin soldiers have appeared too early. The couple falsely claims to have died of illness, builds a great tomb, buries half of the military tally inside, and quietly leaves.

Years later, when their grandson returns disguised as a Taoist priest to retrieve the tally, he discovers that someone has already taken it. He also finds that another force is secretly coveting it.