Strange Records of Great Yan

Ding Buwen finds Tie Niu dead with the same eerie smile as Zhang Dada's family. His grandfather warns him that survival matters more than ambition. Ding Buwen refuses to accept suicide as the cause and resolves to investigate in secret.

Ding Buwen traces a lead to a troupe performer preaching immortality, but his grandfather is murdered soon after. The authorities accuse him of slaughtering the village, forcing him to flee. He wakes in the custody of bandits.

Ding Buwen is taken to the bandit stronghold, where chief Xiong Dawei forces him into a ghost marriage with his deceased daughter, Xiong Yaoyao. He learns Yaoyao killed herself after her father murdered the soldier she loved. To escape with Mo Sangyu, Ding Buwen agrees to the ritual.

Inside the wedding chamber, Ding Buwen and Mo Sangyu examine Xiong Yaoyao's body. They discover a broken hyoid bone and conclude she was murdered, not a suicide. Suspecting someone is manipulating the ghost marriage ritual, they resolve to convince Xiong Dawei of the truth.

Mo Sangyu reveals the poisoned wine contains Duanhun Powder, and Ding Buwen uses the broken hyoid bone and ligature marks to prove Xiong Yaoyao was murdered. The second-in-command confesses and urges the men to raid twelve households, while Xiong Dawei tries to stop him.

Ding Buwen is surrounded by an angry crowd of villagers who accuse him of causing harm and try to seize him. Amid the chaos, someone shouts not to let him escape, and Ding Buwen struggles free before fleeing the scene.

Ding Buwen sees a wanted poster accusing him of a massacre. Mo Sangyu confesses her deception and gives him valuables, then they learn that Jiang Hai has seemingly returned from the dead and head to the Jiang home together.

Ding Buwen examines Jiang Hai's corpse and finds the wounds are human bite marks, not animal bites. Feng Wushuang demands an antidote from him in the cell but fails. At night, a jiangshi breaks in and attacks Feng Wushuang before Jing Zhao drives it off.

Ding Buwen and Mo Sangyu explain the legend of the drought demon and note that neither Jiang Hai nor the Zhao daughter bears Liu Ya's bite marks, suggesting a fabrication. Xiao Shuang tries to stop the grave digging, but Ding Buwen insists on opening the coffin, where Liu Ya appears alive, enraging the villagers.

Yun Lanshan admits to fabricating the drought demon chaos to frame Feng Wushuang's father and claims to possess a poison that can resurrect the dead. She challenges the group, asking whether they would rather see their loved ones return as monsters. Ding Buwen and Mo Sangyu reject her twisted view of life and death.

Mo Sangyu decides to dissect Jiang Hai's body to extract the poison. With her encouragement, Ding Buwen performs the procedure. To study the toxin, Mo Sangyu asks Ding Buwen to bite her; when he refuses, she threatens to let the infected bite her instead. Ding Buwen offers his blood, and Mo Sangyu realizes his blood may be the key to the antidote.

Yun Lanshan admits she is Feng Qianqian. Seventeen years ago, a couple bought the Yin-Yang Box and headed for Taoyuan Village in Yunzhou. She was ordered by Feng father to impersonate the Yun daughter and fabricate a drought-demon crisis, but she continued spreading the corpse poison out of resentment. Feng father is killed by a veiled woman, apologizing to his daughter before dying.

Ding Buwen and his companions search Yunzhou for Taoyuan Village, but neither maps nor locals have heard of it. Feng Wushuang insists her father did not lie. They encounter a funeral procession and find Jing Zhao unconscious, reviving him. Jing Zhao reveals he has been investigating a human trafficking case and has also found no record of the village.

Led by Qiqi into Taoyuan Village, Ding Buwen's group finds the villagers' behavior strange. Jing Zhao suspects he passed through the area before without seeing any village. A man named Qian Cheng attacks the village chief, claiming the chief assaulted his fiancée and that the paradise story is a lie.

While pursuing the attacker in a bamboo grove, Ding Buwen and Jing Zhao inhale miasma and suffer hallucinations of Ding's grandfather's death and a mysterious woman. Mo Sangyu revives them and recounts the case of Bai Wan, a missing flower queen whose mother rejected the body found. The group witnesses the village chief performing a rebirth ritual for Qian Cheng.

Ding Buwen and the others press village chief Wen Lin about a couple with a chest from seventeen years ago, but he insists he cannot remember. Feng Wushuang clashes with the chief over her father's words and later disappears alone at night. Ding Buwen and Jing Zhao discover she is missing and begin searching.