When Ying Che, a modern archaeological researcher, opens his eyes, he discovers that he has transmigrated into the body of a convict laborer at the Qin Dynasty’s Mount Li Mausoleum. Beneath his feet lies the rammed earth of an unfinished underground palace; beside him, the overseer’s iron whip whistles through the air; before him, countless lives wither like grass. This underground empire, built to carry the First Emperor’s dream of immortality, was in fact constructed with piles of bones and rivers of tears.
He witnesses the burial of children as human sacrifices beneath the ill omen of “Mars guarding the Heart,” sees convicts silently rot when mercury is poured into the tomb, observes fangshi performing eerie rituals to pacify water demons with sheep’s blood, and even hides a map of the mausoleum’s secret passageways drawn by Old Mo. When modern scientific knowledge collides with Qin-era superstition, and reverence for life confronts the cruelty of imperial power, Ying Che can no longer remain a bystander. He uses the principle of triangular bracing to reinforce the underground palace’s wooden supports, relies on mugwort to ease the plague in the camp, and even risks secretly conspiring to rescue convicts about to be buried alive, hoping to carve out a path to survival for himself and those around him inside this enormous tomb that devours human lives.
The snows and winds of Mount Li have buried countless wronged souls, while unknown dangers stir in the underground river beneath the palace. Ying Che gradually discovers that the secrets of the Qin Mausoleum go far beyond the lavish claim that “mercury forms the rivers and seas.” The workers buried alive, the strands of blood carved into the terracotta figures, and the eerie shadows of the tomb guardians all seem to point to a far more terrifying truth. In this struggle between life and death, he must not only contend with harsh Qin laws and greedy overseers, but also face the collision of ancient and modern knowledge, the struggle of human nature, and the bloodshed and absurdity of an entire age hidden behind this eternal mausoleum.
