The Freelance Team: We Dig Up More Than Graves

The bronze plate with strange symbols in Wang Pangzi’s hand ties together four people who have nothing in common, forming an “unofficial crew”: a street-stall owner looking to get rich, a stubborn old man carrying a family-inherited map, a meticulous history graduate, and a feng shui master who seems like a charlatan. They’re searching for the “Xuanshui Kingdom,” a place missing from the official histories. Legend has it that the ancient kingdom hid a secret that could “borrow three hundred years of life.” But they aren’t the only ones following the clues: there’s also an official team carrying briefcases, a mysterious company armed with guns, and the riddles left behind by their fathers, who vanished decades ago. An ancient city submerged in an underground river, fake villagers repeating the same motions, a parasitic “water god,” a stele used to sacrifice the living… Every step brings them to the brink of life and death. The golden mask Wang Pangzi has hidden, the unfinished diary of Old Chen’s father, a teammate who suddenly turns against them, “eyes” reaching out from the water… Are these uncertified “amateurs” really digging for treasure, or filling in the pit their ancestors left behind? And could the symbols carved into the bronze plate, murals, and steles be nothing more than the beginning of an even greater mystery?