The Spirit Infant in the Vat

In the summer of 1993, Qiu Guixiang returns with her five-year-old son, Shanwa, to her husband Sang Shigen's hometown, the isolated northern mountain village of Sangjiagelao, to escape the heat.

The old family water vat has stood in the courtyard ever since she married into the family. But this time, Shanwa keeps pointing at it and saying, "There's a little boy inside, smiling at me."

At first, Guixiang dismisses it as a child's fancy. Then, in the middle of the night, a gurgling sound like someone drowning comes from the vat, and tiny, wet handprints appear on its rim for no reason... Pressed by Guixiang, her mother-in-law, Sang Zhao, finally trembles as she recounts a story deliberately buried for decades: thirty years ago, Shigen's cousin, nine-year-old Sang Musuo, drowned in that very vat.

The peace is shattered. Shanwa develops a fever that won't break and starts babbling, while the presence inside the vat grows more brazen by the day. Guixiang is determined to uncover the truth, unaware that the old vat has swallowed more than one wronged soul. It is connected to the unfathomably dark past of all Sangjiagelao. A pair of eyes at the bottom of the vat gazes coldly through the water at every living soul...