In the summer of 1997, 17-year-old Li Hua received half a piece of Si Nanpei from the Han Dynasty in front of his father's hospital bed where he was coughing up blood, and he also accepted the fate of being a "qi-watcher". In the tomb of a nobleman of the Zhongshan Kingdom during the Warring States Period in Xibaitang Village, Zhengding, Hebei Province, he, veteran Lei Zhen, and old master Yao Shouzhuo went deep into the tomb of stone and quicksand. They encountered deadly mycelium and a series of flaps, and even found a silk scroll pointing to the ancient secret treasure "Nine Tripods." As the "nine keys" such as the small bronze tripod model and the broken mountain-shaped mirror appeared one by one, various forces took action: the pursuit of the local snake Scar Jiu, the spying of the mysterious southern master Bai Qiming, the undercurrent within the cultural relics system... Li Hua had to struggle between the original intention of protecting the tomb and the edge of legal principles.
At the beginning of spring in 1998, the ice on the Hutuo River disappeared. The young man carried the safety lock sewn by Si Nanpei and his sweetheart, and boarded the southbound train accompanied by Master Yao and Lei Zhen. The target is "Tianmenkou" in Jianli, Hubei Province - the place where bamboo slips record that "Tianmenkou opens on the winter solstice". What awaits him is not only the Jizhou Ding, which has been sleeping under Yunmengze for thousands of years, but also the ultimate test of trust, betrayal and inheritance. When he finally stood in front of the stone gate, the bloody words at the end of the silk scroll appeared: "Whoever takes the cauldron must sacrifice his life for it."
A contemporary legend of tomb robbing that combines the secrets of Feng Shui, archaeological reasoning, and adventure begins.
