The Uncorrupted Female Corpse in the Sacrificial Pit

An archaeological team unearths an uncorrupted female corpse in the tomb of a Shang king at Yinxu. Hidden inside her bone flute is an inscription in oracle-bone script: “Anyone who disturbs my tomb will have their heart pecked out by the Dark Bird.” That night, the team leader’s daughter suddenly begins screaming in ancient Shang, while blood seeps from a bronze mask in her hand. Team members vanish one after another, and the surveillance footage shows them being devoured by a bronze taotie. Stranger still, flesh from missing team members is found lodged beneath the corpse’s fingernails.

As the excavation deepens, they discover that the human sacrifices buried in the Shang king’s tomb are “coming back to life” after three thousand years. Their bones form oracle-bone characters that point to a terrifying truth: the Shang king sacrificed living people to awaken the “Dark Bird God,” and the archaeological team’s arrival has made them the god’s “new sacrifices.” Their only chance of survival lies in the female corpse’s bone flute. But whoever plays it will be possessed by the Dark Bird and become the next living sacrifice.