Enter the mountains and rivers for the trial; life and death are decided by the Way.
Lin Yan is dragged into the Riverlands Prison, where he faces a white stiff corpse that has crawled out of a coffin dating back to the late Qing dynasty.
The Riverlands Prison is no otherworldly dimension. It is an ancient sealing array laid down by Yu the Great along the ley lines of the Nine Provinces. Where the array has cracked, fragments of history become trial grounds: the jiangshi of Strange Tales, the mountain demon of the Classic of Strange Beasts, Xiangliu of the Classic of Mountains and Seas... Those who clear the trials receive the orthodox Daoist inheritance. Those who fail have their souls and spirits annihilated, trapped forever within the cracks.
Every time a seal in an instance is restored, the corresponding yin fissure in the real world weakens. If an instance is lost, the real world becomes a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood.
From a lay Daoist priest to a Shangqing sealing master, he wields a peachwood sword, draws talismans in cinnabar, treads the Big Dipper, inscribes corpse-binding seals, and summons thunder. Meanwhile, in the real world, a real estate developer’s ominous coffin, evil spirits in a mountain village, the authorities’ Ninth Bureau, and the Cult of the Turbid Age, secretly widening the yin fissures... The cracks are spreading across the Nine Provinces.
Clutching his old peachwood sword, Lin Yan finally understands: this is no trial. It is a watch at the array.
He has no choice.
