Lianshan is the youngest Taoist master at Qingjiao Temple. Sent down the mountain by his master to travel the world, he plans to see the sights and treat people’s illnesses along the way. But in Qingshi Village, he encounters a strange disease he has never seen before: the patients’ pupils are completely black, and patches of their skin have turned to stone. Even the healer’s fingertips become stained with a layer of black ash that won’t wash off. The source of the disease isn’t in the people, but in a living stone with “eyes” on the mountain behind the village.
His master leaves him with just one warning: “If you see it, don’t touch it. Come back.” Yet he refuses to explain. With his hands stained blue-gray and an iron token of unknown origin, Lianshan heads west. He fights his way into the Gates of Hell, seizes the Western Divine Bones, and battles the evil spirits of the underworld. Combining Eastern Taoist arts with Western divine power, he finally seals the gate.
But when he returns to the mountain in triumph, the temple has changed. Black mist shrouds the mountain, his fellow disciples are frozen in place like stone statues, and his master is nowhere to be found. The place that was once home has become an abyss he must descend into.
