[Supernatural + Folk Mystery + Detective Investigation]
I was chosen as the River God’s bride, but they didn’t want my life. They wanted the “demon fetus” in my womb.
My name is Lin Xiu. Everyone in Xishui Village despises me as a “stone woman.” Then, on a rainy night, a man in black robes forced me to drink golden elixir water, and I conceived a child that should not exist in this world.
Since then, blue-black handprints have appeared on my body, and every night I dream of infant spirits wailing. The villagers say it is the River God’s blessing. Only I know it is a century-old curse taking root and growing inside me.
When Gu Huaiyuan, the youngest criminal profiler in the provincial public security department, comes to the village to investigate a series of disappearances, he sees me as his only lead and as a patient.
He believes in science, while I am trapped in a realm of ghosts. He follows the clues, while I glimpse the dead.
One of us stands in the light, the other in the dark. Together, we tear open the bloody secret beneath the incense smoke of the Lady’s Temple. Then we discover that the sacrifices were never meant to honor the gods. They were meant to seal away something far more terrifying...
And as flames rise from the altar, should I trust the man who promises to take me and my child away, or the “demon fetus” in my womb, neither wholly good nor wholly evil, whose blood is bound to mine?
The River God demands a life, and a demon fetus grows in secret. Can the man who sees through the mystery finally break the trap closing around me?
