Curse of the Black River: Unearthing the Dead

About this drama

In the Republic of China era, Dahe Village lives in terror of the River God's Curse — young girls vanish yearly at Black River Bend, with the corpse-retrieving Lin family blamed for angering the spirits. A decade ago, Lin Xiaoyu's grandfather and father died mysteriously during a retrieval, forcing her into city exile. Now returning to uncover the truth, Xiaoyu finds the village in chaos: another girl, Erya, has disappeared. When mobs demand the Lin family pay for the ""curse,"" she volunteers as sacrificial bride to retrieve the corpse. Surviving harrowing rituals — a ""cleansing"" bath in corpse-contaminated waters and bone divination — she braves the river's depths, resisting ghostly whispers and phantom garments that lure victims to doom. Her investigation reveals the ""River God"" is actually Shen Zhao, a young man forced into madness by the village chief. The chief and ""Aunt Lin"" have run a human trafficking ring for years, selling missing girls while poisoning witnesses as ""demon-possessed"" — including Xiaoyu's ancestors. With Shen Zhao as her secret ally and Detective Zhao's aid, Xiaoyu exposes the conspiracy. Ledgers detailing the trafficking and poison vials