To find the "mirror in the old house" mentioned by her comatose mother, Lin Shen enters her grandmother's old home, sealed for ten years. But in the carved wooden mirror, she glimpses a figure combing its hair, and from then on is drawn into a string of terrifying events: the reflection moves on its own, unfamiliar long hair tangles around the frame, and an eerie sound of combing follows her everywhere. After Lin Shen dies under mysterious circumstances, Captain Li of the criminal police takes over the investigation, only to go mad because of the mirror. When Lin Shen's mother wakes up, she mechanically combs her hair in front of the mirror, repeating, "Comb it neatly."
As the grandmother's distant granddaughter, Su Qing is forced to face it all. During her investigation, she discovers that the mirror's original owner was Shen Lan, the proprietress of a rouge shop during the Republic of China era. When Shen Lan died in a fire, her spirit became bound to the mirror, where she must find a "substitute" to prolong her life. Her grandmother, Lin Shen, Captain Li, her mother... one name after another is drawn into this curse spanning generations. Su Qing gradually realizes that she and Shen Lan share an unbreakable blood tie, and that an astonishing truth about betrayal, obsession, and redemption lies hidden within it.
In the musty air of the old house, the sound of combing never stops. The boundary between the reflection and the person outside the mirror grows ever hazier, as a silent struggle over survival and destiny unfolds on both sides of the glass.
