It tells the story of folklore researcher Chen Mo who came to the cursed Fog Bell Town to investigate the truth behind the mysterious death of the town mayor and his family twelve years ago. When he stepped into the Bell Tower Square carrying his ancestral copper pocket watch, the pocket watch suddenly stopped. At the same time, he met the undertaker Lin Hongmian who was collecting the unknown corpse. The snake-shaped birthmark on the latter's wrist had a strange resonance with the bell-shaped bruise on the corpse's neck. The one-eyed guard Zhao Tiezhong drove them away violently, but secretly stuffed the gear parts that recorded the list of the dead in the past dynasties into Chen Mo's pocket. In the paper-making shop of the mute girl Bai Xiaozhi, the paper figures facing the bell tower suddenly spontaneously ignited collectively on a rainy night, and the distorted reflection of the fire at the mayor's house emerged in the firelight. When Chen Mo and Lin Hongmian discovered that the pocket watches of all the deceased had stopped at 11:55 at the moment of death, the clock watcher appeared for the first time wrapped in a raincoat that smelled of engine oil. When the brass key was inserted into the keyhole of the bell tower, it made the same gear clenching sound as Chen Mo's childhood memory of his grandfather dying.
Purpose: Focusing on "the price of greed, the weight of truth and the redemption of human nature"