American psychologist John Holden arrives in London to participate in a symposium aiming to expose witchcraft and devil-worship as a fraud, with attention centered on a cult run by a Julian Karswell. Debarking his plane, Holden learns that the symposium leader, Henry Harrington, has suddenly died and he is now in charge. What only the audience knows is that Harrington was clearly killed by a demon, apparently summoned by Karswell to avenge his persecution. Despite both threatening and cajoling behavior by Karswell, Holden determines to proceed, though the only cult member willing to talk about his experiences is in a prison psychiatric ward, catatonic after allegedly killing yet another cult member. However, Harrington's niece, Joanna, believes, based on her uncle's notes, that Karswell may indeed have some satanic powers derived from an ancient tome in an obscure language which he has been able to translate, and attempts to warn the skeptic Holden. Karswell's mother also attempts to warn Holden off. However, the thing which begins to most get to Holden are the occasional, but mounting, sensory and mental disturbances he begins experiencing after an encounter with Karswell, and the discovery that, during this encounter, Karswell secretly slipped a slip of parchment with a curse in runic symbols on it into Holden's belongings, a parchment identical to one Harrington recorded having had passed to him in a similar manner shortly before his death... [N.B. Holden at no point stays at the Karswell estate].。主人公宁毅出身微寒,却始终积极进取,从赋诗、从商,到习武、齐家,从最初安逸度日的赘婿,逐渐承担起更多的责任,帮苏檀儿一起创业,又助身边的亲朋好友们实现了各自的理想,济人困厄、授人以渔。后面临家国大事,宁毅一行人屡次身处险境,但最终靠勇气和智慧守护了霖安城。正所谓“小小赘婿,大大天地”,宁毅从一名只想独善其身的赘婿,成长为真正胸怀天下之人,而其他角色也都有着各自的成长,最终为大的时局贡献了自己的力量。。他曾经站在了人生的巅峰,拥有世间梦寐以求的一切。 可世事难料,一夕之间,他失去了一切,从天坛跌入泥地,成了一个笑话。。