He Dong, a medical school graduate, has been able to see “shadow people” since birth. After a bizarre haunting at a hospital, he is forced to return to his hometown in northeast China and inherit his grandfather’s shamanic mantle. He never believed in ghosts or spirits, but in Heishui Village he encounters one strange event after another: a weasel demanding to be granted a human form, an ancient tree becoming a spirit, and a ghost market appearing in the mortal world. Gradually, he realizes that shamanism is no superstition, but an ancient wisdom for connecting people, spirits, and nature.
As his investigation deepens, He Dong discovers that his grandfather’s death was connected to a campaign to eradicate the Four Olds in the 1970s. Meanwhile, the resentment of the thousands buried in a mass grave beneath the village remains unresolved, and developers severing the dragon vein trigger a night when a hundred ghosts roam. On the night of the Ghost Festival, he performs spirit dances and beats sacred drums to guide the dead to peace, but unexpectedly uncovers the tragic story of how shamans gave their lives to suppress evil during the war against Japan.
In the end, in a secret place on Changbai Mountain, He Dong competes with an overseas gang of tomb raiders for a sacred shamanic relic and prevents an evil god from descending into the world. He understands that the shaman’s mission has never vanished; it has merely taken a different form: doctors save lives, shamans save souls. He chooses to remain in northeast China and establish a modern center for shamanic culture, seeking a balance between humanity and nature in the space between science and faith.
