Her grandfather died mysteriously deep in Suolong Mountain. His body was covered in bite marks, yet his palm clutched half of a bronze plaque engraved with a dragon. Lin Mo, a graduate student in history, returns to her hometown to investigate, only to uncover a series of strange events: seven people have gone missing from the mountain village in six months, and the construction crew hears crying every night. The “Bone Dragon legend,” which she once dismissed as superstition, is closing in on her with every step.
She enters the mountain with Lao Jiu, a hunter, and one eerie encounter follows another: a signpost that turns to point the way toward an abyss, and a scarecrow in an old school uniform that laughs at night. Her grandfather’s diary reveals the forbidden truth: Suolong Mountain is a rift between the Three Realms, imprisoning a “Bone Dragon” formed from countless skeletons and their resentment. The nine soul-binding locks are its only restraints, and she is the last “key” in the family that guards the mountain.
Professor Chen’s “academic expedition” conceals a plot. The spirit of the mountain-guardian woman is neither wholly good nor evil, and the secret Lao Jiu glimpsed as a child hangs over them like a blade. When the ninth lock cracks atop the mountain and bony claws reach out from a mound of skeletons, Lin Mo finally understands: to subdue this “dragon,” they need not a seal, but a way to use her bloodline to deliver the evil in people’s hearts.
The nine locks are about to break, and the dragon’s shadow is taking shape. Her blood is both the chain that binds it and the lantern that guides souls to the other shore.
