On New Year’s Eve, after seven months undercover in a cult, detective Lin Youran moved in to take them down, only to be dragged unexpectedly into a mythological event spanning a thousand years.
When he opened his eyes again, he had become Song Nian, the forty-eighth-generation heir of a family that drove away the Nian. In his hand was a peachwood plaque engraved with the words “Drive Away the Nian,” and before him stood a towering vermilion ancient gate, three zhang high. Beyond it, the primordial beast Nian was stirring.
But that was not the only danger.
Eight cultists had transmigrated here as well. They blended into the crowd at the ceremony, hoping to sabotage the ritual and welcome their “god.”
More deadly still, Lin Youran discovered that the villagers had branded him a bringer of disaster. He could not perform the Nian-exorcising ritual dance, the drums would not sound, and the red paper charms were useless. Worse, the white-bearded old man leading the ceremony had already turned the entire town into an offering to Nian.
Everyone ran. Lin Youran was the only one who stayed.
When the true ritual dance awakened in his bones, and a man on the brink of death sang the Nuo song passed down for a thousand years, Lin Youran finally understood: the ceremony had never been a ritual. It was a deadly battle passed down from generation to generation. He had to use blood to activate the doorframe, drive back the beast with his dance steps, and complete the final seal despite the eight believers’ interference and the entire town’s hostility. Either Nian would devour the human world, or he would give his life to fill the gap in the gate.
This was a showdown between a detective and mythology, and the final battle between an ordinary man and a primordial beast.
Above all, it was a tragic epic of ordinary people, generation after generation, standing guard over the boundary of the human world with nothing but their flesh and blood.
