City construction unearthed the sealed ancient masks, relics of the nine guardians of the lost civilization, and found them on the black market. Hei Fan, a 24-year-old unemployed young man, spent 200 yuan to bring back one of these from a second-hand collector, Chen, and lived in an eight-square-meter partitioned house in a village in the city. His life fell into another side.
Wearing it will give you the ability to summon the Shadow Corps, which is said to be divided into nine generals. The price is a "black line" that climbs behind your ears - it is the degree of corrosion and the countdown to death. The more you exert force, the closer it gets; if you wear it for a long time, the person in the mask will laugh first, and then live for you, until the original you is pushed out from inside, and you become the next person sealed behind the face.
Hei Fan could barely pay the rent, but he was hunted down by the underground organization "Shadow Abyss" because of his face. The doctor wants to make him the master of the black realm, and the black realm itself just wants to devour him. The only people who can pin him down are a few people who refuse to let go: reporter Shen Zhiwei, Jiang Li who always comes to deliver meals, and Ji Wantang who betrays the organization.
But the anchor comes at a steep price—the mask can never be completely taken off, and the black realm cannot swallow it. Who can he protect? The night Jiang Li was most afraid of was when he sealed it for her with his own hands; Lao Chen left his life in that recording to save him.
This is a dark and decadent work of urban superpowers: the mask recognizes its master, the regiment obeys orders, and the real battlefield is whether a waste can prove that he has been seen as a human before he is assimilated.
