The Tomb of the Southern Gu King

Deep in the Wuliang Mountains of southern Yunnan, the elders of the Nugu ancient village still forbid the younger generation from entering the depths of the rainforest—where lies a "City of a Hundred Gu," the burial complex of the last Dai chieftain. Legend has it that the chieftain, unwilling to see his people slaughtered by the Burmese, used the forbidden art of "nine gu produce one king" to bury himself alive in a rattan coffin, vowing to transform into a gu and protect the village for a thousand years. But because of this, anyone who approaches the tomb with greed will have their ankles entangled by blood vines, which will drain their life essence. In 2003, in Pu'er, Yunnan, Lu Yan, a retired reconnaissance soldier, receives an anonymous letter from Myanmar—accompanied by a blood-red vine covered in barbs, identical to the last relic his father sent home before his mission on the Yunnan-Burma border eighteen years ago. His father's old comrade, Wu Sanxiang, who now runs an antique shop and is nicknamed "Old Owl," recognizes the vine as the root of the legendary "man-eating rattan coffin," and what the coffin guards is not gold or silver, but the Gu King raised by the chieftain with his lifelong cultivation—a creature between insect and beast that can read minds and discern... — Description from novelcodex.org