Jiang Xun, a third-year university student, was a laid-back young man who cared only about passing the civil service exams. But during an exploration of an abandoned hospital, he is unexpectedly caught up in a “haunted domain,” a death space formed from humanity's collective fears. Here, the rules of the real world are twisted into deadly traps: hospital rooms have rules for patients, elevators have lists of taboos, and reflections in mirrors replace their originals. At death's door, Jiang Xun awakens the ability to “see spirits.” Armed with a notebook of folk knowledge left behind by his grandfather, who made his living roaming the land, and an old pocket watch that can warn him three times, he becomes the haunted domain's most unconventional breaker of rules.
At the same time, a horror livestream System of unknown origin binds itself to him. Viewers' tips can be exchanged for survival tools, while his chances of survival depend on his follower count. He teams up with Ji Lan, a bold paranormal livestreamer. Together, they go from struggling to survive to actively fighting back, gradually uncovering the truth behind the livestream System: it is a “back door” his grandfather left behind with the rest of his life, a way to use the power of the masses to resist the erosion of the uncanny world.
As their investigation deepens, a secret organization that has endured for hundreds of years, the “Guides,” comes to light. They offer the fear of living people as sacrifices to maintain the seal, and Jiang Xun's grandfather was the organization's fugitive founder. Jiang Xun must collect the lost Book of Banishment across ten haunted domains and face the ultimate choice: sacrifice himself to become the new core of the seal, or shatter the ancient creed that “fear must be destroyed”?
