A Strange Wake on the Night of the Blood Rain

On New Year’s Eve, a curtain of thick, crimson rain cuts off Qingmei Village and tears open the terrifying abyss beneath its tranquil surface. College student Zhang Xiaoman returns home for a family reunion, only to see his grandfather wearing a conical hat sewn with an eerie five-pointed star and insisting on sneaking into the back hills to “feed” something. When scratching sounds come from the coffin in the mourning hall, the family’s ancestral bronze bell stirs an echo from deep underground, and a nonhuman face rises from the ancient well, he realizes that the whole village has long since become a cage for sacrifices.

All phone signals have been cut off. The villagers are tight-lipped, and only a madman’s mutterings hint at the buried crimes of the “Star Guard.” Every mark carved along the well, every page of a charred diary, points to a bloody offering that has continued for decades. And the list in the village chief’s hands, which must be destroyed at all costs, means the “sacrifices” are no longer livestock. This time, it is the living who will be hungry.

Before the blood rain stops, Zhang Xiaoman must uncover the truth behind the five-star symbol and find the scattered soul-subduing bronze bells. But just when he thinks he has finally ended the cycle, an even colder echo rises from the earth where the bells were buried…