Chen Mo, a young man from the city, receives an obituary from his hometown, Yinhuai Village. His long-estranged uncle, Chen Shouyi, has died under mysterious circumstances, and his will requires Chen Mo to return in person to inherit the ancestral home. Hidden deep in the Qinling Mountains, this ancient village is named after the thousand-year-old locust tree at its entrance, so large that three people could encircle its trunk. It is also known for the legend of the “Underworld Sacrifice” held beneath the tree. They say that every leap-year seventh month, the ancient locust tree drains a well dry, and that no one must go near it that night.
After returning to the village, Chen Mo finds trouble stirring beneath its peaceful surface. The villagers avoid his gaze and refuse to discuss his uncle’s death. A wooden box covered in strange symbols lies hidden in the cellar of the ancestral home. At night, the rustling of locust leaves sounds like someone whispering outside his window. As he investigates, he gradually uncovers Yinhuai Village’s secrets: it was built on a place where evil spirits are nurtured; the ancient locust tree is both a talisman that suppresses them and a passage connecting the worlds of the living and the dead; and the Chen family has guarded that passage for generations as the “Keepers of the Locust Tree.” When Chen Mo tries to break the curse inherited from his ancestors, he discovers that he has already been chosen by the tree as a sacrifice. The bones buried deep beneath the yellow earth, the blood oath recorded in the family genealogy, and the shadows haunting the old house are dragging him step by step into a cycle he cannot escape…
