Lin Yan, the descendant of Miao Gu in western Hunan, in order to trace the truth behind his grandfather's mysterious disappearance, entered Shanghai, the "magic city" made of reinforced concrete, and took over the live broadcast studio of the "Folklore and Strange News Society" left by his grandfather. However, under the surface of this prosperous city, invisible "rules" have long been woven into a cage of terror - the elevator to the 7th floor must be pressed within 3 seconds at 12 o'clock, and the knocking sound of the Nuo opera mask will be heard one second later; during the live broadcast, you must not look back at the camera, the poison of the "shadow audience" behind is spreading along the line of sight; even the smart speaker at the bedside will suddenly play the lost Miao nursery rhymes in the middle of the night, and the words are the rules and codes of death.
From the floor puzzle of "Elevator Shadow" to the song-request curse of "Midnight Radio"; from the traffic fight controlled by bewitching on the "Live PK Channel" to the terrifying illusion of reality and fiction in "AI Generated Copy", Lin Yan discovered that every mystery has its own secrets. It is a crazy collision between folklore and technology: Miaojiang Gu insects parasitize in the live broadcast data, a century-old Nuo opera is reborn on the electronic screen, and the end of all rules points to a Chinese-style Cthulhu existence sleeping underground in the city-"The Bone-Eroding Shadow".
In order to break the cycle, Lin Yan must use the bewitching handbook left by his grandfather as a key to intelligently solve puzzles in the gaps in the rules: crack the logical trap of "nested copy of rules", choose life and death in the plot forks determined by readers' votes, and distinguish between real folk taboos and virtual horror illusions in the immersive horror created by AI. When Miao poison meets smart technology, when ancient Nuo opera meets modern live broadcast, every time the rules are followed or broken, it will affect the fate of the entire city...
