Yangtze River Watcher

The turbid waves of the Yangtze River lapped at Yanxi Town, and also lapped at Lin Yanqiu's heavy footsteps as he returned home. She took the diary of her grandfather Lin Zhengguo, who disappeared on the night of "He Bo's Wife Marrying" thirty years ago, and stepped into this riverside town soaked in moisture and silence. Thick water vapor climbed up the bluestone slabs, and the swollen algae looked like human hair. The avoidance of the old man Kaiyu, the hastily locked latch of Widow Wang's grocery store, the paper figure in the ancestral hall whose feet are wet with mud and is said to have wandered around in the middle of the night... Every detail in the town reveals a suppressed uneasiness. The faded copper key and scrawled diary left behind by his grandfather revealed the true identity of the "corpse hunter" under the surface - "soul master". He once "sent back" things from the Yangtze River that should not have landed. The horrifying warning on the last page of the diary becomes the prologue: "The paper man opens his eyes... Nine infants' scales... The Yangtze River is breathing." As the ceremony approaches, Zhang Mute, the papermaker, is buried at the bottom of the river, and the child disappears mysteriously. And the most terrifying omen came - the paper figurine in red wedding dress prepared for He Bo floated back to the shore on its own with the still-dry river mud. Lin Yanqiu discovered that the ancient Hebo marriage was being contaminated and distorted by some primitive and filthy power deep in the river. When the paper man's empty ink-dotted eyes "gazed" at her in the night, a cold mutation awakened in her body - in the depths of her pupils, an inhuman bronze line quietly crawled up. The Yangtze River was breathing heavily, whispering Jiuying's ancient malice. What's the truth behind my grandfather's disappearance? What kind of sacrifice does the strangely moving paper figure foreshadow? Are the lines in her eyes a curse or a key? When the polluted tradition comes with the terror of devouring innocence, Lin Yanqiu must face the indescribable terrifying nature under the turbid river water.