Rubbing Ink takes the thousand-year-old art of rubbing inscriptions as its foundation and a mysterious cloud-pattern talisman as its guide. It tells the legendary story of Gu Yan and Su Jingyi, who cross mountains and rivers to protect national treasures.
An unexpected discovery of a fragmentary Tang dynasty stele on Qingfeng Mountain brings the two together. The cloud-pattern talisman carved into the stele resonates with Gu Yan's Taiyin talisman, and its markings also match records in the notebook kept by Su Jingyi's grandmother. To decipher the stele's hidden message, they join forces and embark on a journey to safeguard cultural relics: crossing a sandstorm through Wolf Valley at the Kunlun Mountain Pass and exploring the ruins of Buddha Tooth Temple; uncovering the thousand-year-old mysteries of the Hetian jade stele and the Buddha tooth relic; venturing deep into the Taklamakan Desert and digging bamboo slips of The Annals of Jingjue from beneath the shifting sands of the ancient city of Niya; climbing Muztagh Ata in the Pamir Plateau to reclaim a key scripture from Xuanzang's westward journey amid the peril of an ice cave; and fighting cultural relic looters coveting the national treasures.
Along the way, they witness not only the grandeur of Xuanzang's journey west and the history of the Western Regions
