Strange Cases of the Republic: The Hall of Eight Torments

In the twenty-third year of the Republic, every raindrop falling on Shanghai carries the stain of sin.

When the body of a charity hospital director is found curled up like a baby in a sealed steam room, and a retired warlord falls to his death amid the strains of Kunqu opera, eight bizarre murders entangle the city like poisonous vines. At every crime scene lies a bloodstained copper coin engraved with the Buddhist phrase “The Truth of Suffering.” The eight Buddhist sufferings have become the pattern for a string of killings!

Chen Yanqing, a detective in the foreign concessions; Su Wanyun, a forensic pathologist trained abroad; and Du Xiaoqi, a young man from the underworld, are forced into an uneasy alliance. Together, they rip away the masks of the hypocrites:

A benevolent doctor sells babies to laboratories.

A newspaper tycoon uses his words to strangle conscience.

A film queen trades departed souls for the red on her lips.

Every victim is a villain, yet none of the killers is a demon.

A delayed killing hidden in steam pipes, a death-dealing infrasound concealed in a gramophone record, bone poison smeared on a hidden sleeve dart in a thousand-year-old Buddha statue… Amid the chaos of war, people use meticulous schemes to pass judgment on the evils of their age. But the deeper the three probe the mystery, the more they descend into a conflict between law and human feeling:

When the law becomes a plaything of the powerful, can vigilante justice be an act of mercy?

When a seeker of revenge wields “Buddhist suffering” as a blade, who has the right to judge all living beings?

In the shadows, the coin marks follow them like specters. A funeral parlor's coffin for a ghost marriage, a plague-ridden prison in a pharmacy, bloodthirsty relics in a golden Buddhist sanctuary… All the crimes ultimately point to a grand feast. A poisoned needle in a cake meant for a thousand people is dripping with a toxin distilled from the eight sufferings, and the one holding the knife is someone they love!

In this maze of a city woven from steam and blood, the truth is a blade sharper than death.

“We hunted the killer, only to clear the way for the devil.”

When the final coin hits the ground, the spectators realize they have been part of the game all along.