1874, Yichang, Hubei.
There is an inconspicuous Taoist temple on the edge of the Yangtze River. In the temple lives a middle-aged Taoist priest with an unattractive appearance - Chen Shouyi. He doesn't make elixirs or draw talismans. What he does every day is to read an old yellowed book with six words written on the cover: "Secret Records of Maoshan Volume Seven".
Regarding this book, the successive leaders of Maoshan left an iron rule: Anyone who reads this book will die in 7749 days. But Chen Shouyi is a person who is not afraid of death, because - he is already a dead man.
From Yichang to Wuhan, from Dongting Lake to the Dabie Mountains, bizarre murders occurred one after another. The county magistrate who died suddenly after being entrusted by the White Snake in a dream, the nineteen merchants who disappeared in the ruined temple, the massacre of the entire village by the underworld soldiers, the headless corpse emerging from the thousand-year-old well... At every crime scene, someone has seen the same haggard Taoist priest.
When Chen Shouyi turned to the last page of the seventh volume, he discovered that he had died twenty years ago. And the real secret is hidden in the page he has never turned.
