Former mechanical engineer Chen Mo boards the mysterious “Perpetual Motion Train” on a stormy night, searching for his younger sister Chen Xi, who has been missing for six months. What follows is a bizarre journey aboard a train running along abandoned tracks, where time and space twist into chaos. Missing passengers are bound by their obsessions, reliving endless cycles of death in the carriages. Each carriage holds a sealed supernatural incident, from curses in mirrors to apparitions in misty woods, concealing secrets that span the ages.
The train conductor, Li Ningxia, sets the rules: pass the trials in five carriages within 72 hours, or become part of the train forever. On board, Chen Mo meets Lin Xiaoman, who can sense the obsessions binding the dead. Together, they solve the carriage mysteries, from the ghost of a woman in a qipao who died by suicide in 1943 to an old man who died unjustly after a misdiagnosis in 1976. Each mystery they unravel brings them closer to finding his sister.
As they venture deeper, Chen Mo discovers that his sister’s disappearance is connected to the train’s “perpetual motion core.” Fueled by the fear of the living and the obsessions of the dead, the machine is being corrupted by the “Lord of the Void.” His sister, it turns out, willingly became the sacrifice keeping the core running. To break the cycle and wake her, Chen Mo and his companions gather scattered gear fragments and awaken the spiritual powers of past passengers. They battle the Void’s minions amid folds in time and supernatural illusions, hoping to rewrite the fate of those swallowed by the train with “hope” as their fuel.
The train’s gears never stop turning, carrying the cycle of sacrifice and protection. Can Chen Mo uncover the secret of the pocket watch his sister left behind before time runs out? This redemption spanning life and death will find its answer at last on the perpetual tracks.
