Archaeologist Meng Qiang is drawn into the mysteries of Sanxingdui bronze after his mentor, Zhou Jianlin, dies under bizarre circumstances. Half of a glowing bronze fragment and a bloodstained copy of the Classic of Mountains and Seas reveal the truth behind a five-thousand-year-old seal: gods and ghosts are returning, and the strange world of the Classic of Mountains and Seas is breaking through into reality. When a human-faced, bird-bodied monster brings him a crucial clue, he must face the ancient past in which gods and Buddhas subdued the heavens.