Bronze Tomb Guardians

In the 26th year of Guangxu's reign, Shen Henian, the last Celestial Master of Maoshan, used his own life to seal the ancient Zombie King Ying Gou inside a bronze coffin and sink it to the bottom of the Yangtze River.

He left behind a warning: Reinforce the seal with blood every sixty years. If this vow is broken, Ying Gou will see daylight again, and not a soul will remain for thousands of miles.

Twenty-four years later, the seal begins to weaken.

Shen Henian's grandson, Shen Changgeng, is a corpse handler who cannot even draw a proper talisman. At the foot of Qingniu Mountain in western Hunan, he loses a walking corpse. The corpse removes its own restraining talisman, slips into a crowd of refugees, and walks into Qingniu Town.

The well water turns black overnight, the night watchmen drop dead one after another, and a female corpse from the mass grave puts on a wedding dress.

In the mountains outside town, a bronze box lies empty after being blasted open with explosives.

A talking black chicken perches on the altar in a ruined temple and tells Zhang Tiezhu, the fool who blew up the mountain, “The Bodhisattva won't clean up your mess.”

At the same time, a tall, thin figure carrying a white paper lantern appears at the town gate. He wears an old long gown and carries a coin sword on his back. His eyes are sunken, his face ashen: Shen Yunting, the eldest grandson of the Shen family and the uncle-cousin Shen Changgeng has never met.

He has come because the ghost soldiers are hunting for lives.

Only one of the seals Grandpa left behind remains. Ying Gou's corpse lies beneath the river, while his soul is trapped in the mountains. One brother must guard the seal, the other must break it. And the ghost soldiers have already formed their ranks in the shadows, waiting to collect the old debt the Shen family has owed for twenty years:

One life, for generations to come.