When folklorist Lin Wan inherits her ancestral home in western Hunan, she has no idea that a soul-devouring curse awaits her in its century-old stilt house. On her first night in the old home, she hears weaving from the attic. A fishy-sweet slime seeps from the cracks in the walls, and the cobwebs between the beams and pillars can never be cleared away. When the first intruder is hanged in the main hall by invisible spider silk, she realizes she has been caught in a sacrificial ritual known as the “Cycle of the Five Poisons.”
Architectural restoration expert Chen Mo sees horrifying memories when he touches a wooden beam: in the late Qing dynasty, his ancestors tried to suppress vengeful spirits by using an even more sinister form of sorcery to turn living people into “Five Poisons talismans.” As the Snake Mound cellar, Centipede Courtyard, and Toadfall Chamber emerge one after another, Lin Wan's body begins to change: webs form at her fingertips, her tongue splits, and she hears insect pupae hatching inside her blood vessels.
The tomb keeper rings a bronze bell in warning: “When the Five Poisons turn on each other, the living must stay away.” On the night of the lunar eclipse, Lin Wan discovers the truth beneath her ancestors' memorial tablets: her bloodline and Chen Mo's are the crucial sacrifices and antidote in this century-old curse...
