Seventy-Two Faceless Corpses in the Pagoda

Lin Shen is a forensic pathologist with Interpol. One early morning, he gets a call from Sofia, a Brazilian police officer: deep in the Amazon rainforest, they have discovered an ancient tower. Inside hang seventy-two faceless corpses wearing ancient Chinese armor, and one of them has fingerprints identical to his.

When Lin Shen reaches the Amazon, he finds that the corpse's face is slowly growing, taking on his own features. The local tribe's old shaman says Lin Shen is the "Guardian of the Tower," and that the scar on his hand, left by a kitchen knife when he was peeling an apple at the age of seven, is no scar at all, but a mark from eight hundred years ago. Something called an "Eye" is trapped beneath the tower. It wants to come out. Lin Shen has to go down and take its place.

Their guide Rodrigo has disappeared. Sofia left after becoming pregnant. Then a mysterious man named Xu Heting appears and says he arranged everything. He has a scar just like Lin Shen's.

Lin Shen faces a choice: stay in the tower and wait to die, or go down and take the Eye's place.