Deep in the Qinling Mountains, a shattered ancient bronze lamp sets off a thousand-year upheaval. Beneath Chang'an, a fragmentary secret scroll from the Lantern Office reveals a sinister truth. Chen Mo, a down-on-his-luck archaeology apprentice, follows a mysterious commission into the Qinling Mountains' Bewildering Hollow. There, he unexpectedly finds a fragment of the Ghost Cave Mystic Lamp and is drawn into a shocking conspiracy spanning the Shang and Zhou dynasties through the Tang and Song.
Guided by the bronze fragments, Chen Mo joins forces with the slick, portly Wang Pangzi and the mysterious Lin Yao to form an expedition team. From the Dragon Cave in the Qinling Mountains to Chang'an's Lantern Tower, from the Water Tomb in Gusu to the Dragon City in the northern desert, then on to the snowy depths of Kunlun, the Ghost Cave in western Hunan, and the Merman Tomb in the South China Sea, they unravel intricate mechanisms and uncanny feng shui formations in perilous ancient tombs. They encounter bizarre entities such as bloodthirsty leeches, shadow ghosts, and the Flower-Falling Cave Maiden, while contending with various forces, including the mysterious organization known as the Mystic Sect and the Vatican's Secret Archive.
Every time a fragment of the Mystic Lamp appears, it brings with it a buried historical secret: Shang and Zhou rituals that communicated with the yin and yang worlds, the Tang dynasty Lantern Office's astonishing plan to suppress the “demon of the earth's spiritual core,” the blood-curse legend of the Xiongnu royal court, and the mystery of the corpse lamps in the Queen Mother of the West's palace. Chen Mo gradually realizes that the Mystic Lamp is no ordinary funerary object. It is the key to sealing an ancient demon, and collecting its fragments is steadily awakening a terror that has slept for ten thousand years.
When the seven fragments are finally reunited in the Merman Tomb in the South China Sea, Chen Mo must face not only the apocalypse brought by the demon's awakening, but also the depths of human depravity behind his mentor's disappearance and his martial uncle's betrayal. Amid the interplay of feng shui and mechanical arts, and the collision of historical secrets with modern expeditions, can Chen Mo and the others, with the hearts of guardians of the lamp, unravel the prophecy: “When the seven children return to their places, the Ghost Cave shall open wide”?
