Kakubayashi is a folklore researcher with a paranoid love for ancient legends. His grandfather used to be the guardian of the small mountain villages around the Kirigakure Forest, but disappeared mysteriously after entering the forest twenty years ago, leaving only a bronze fragment engraved with strange vine patterns and a vague last word: "The heart of the forest hides the key to balance, and only the 'Mist Drawer' can awaken it."
Over the years, Lin Ye has never given up searching for the truth behind his grandfather's disappearance, and the bronze fragment became his only clue. As global climate anomalies intensify, the scope of the Hidden Mist Forest continues to expand, and strange things occur frequently in surrounding villages. After villagers are lost in the fog, their memories will experience strange gaps, and some people even claim to have seen people who disappeared twenty years ago. In order to understand all this, Lin Ye took the bronze fragments and embarked on a journey to the Kirigakure Forest.
After entering the forest, Lin Ye discovered that the fog here was not formed naturally, but was controlled by some mysterious force. The flow of time in the forest was also completely different from the outside world. There were still carvings on the ancient trees similar to the pattern of bronze fragments. On the way, he met Awu, a girl who can communicate with forest creatures. The two walked together and gradually uncovered the secret of the hidden forest: this forest is a barrier that protects the world's "spiritual veins", and the "key" is not a physical object, but an ancient power awakened by the resonance of the bloodline of the "fog leader" and the bronze fragments. What shocked Lin Ye even more was that his grandfather did not disappear back then, but chose to bind his consciousness to the forest and became a "living barrier" in order to prevent the villains from seizing the key and destroying the spiritual veins.
