Zhang Zhang is a humble carpenter with exceptional skills who doesn't believe in ghosts or spirits.
But strange sounds from the ancient shrine at the village entrance in the dead of night shatter the peace, forcing him onto a path to solve the mystery.
To support his family, he travels far to Li Family Hollow, where he repairs a gate, makes an intricately carved bed, and installs bedboards for an old man. He ends up staying for more than twenty days.
Within the deep-set household, strange events keep occurring. The family says little, concealing secrets.
When the job is finished, he settles the bill and heads home. At dusk, as he passes an old graveyard on a slope overgrown with weeds, a stage for a gong-and-drum opera appears out of nowhere.
Exhausted and weary, he becomes more and more entranced as he watches, plunging into a real-life predicament fraught with danger.
