When a glowing long-finned whale swallowed him, private detective Huang Mao finally realized that antique dealer Zhao Beihai's disappearance was no accident.
Deep inside the whale's belly, the smell of rotten seaweed mingled with the almond scent of radioactive material. Zhao Beihai's corpse was wedged between folds of muscle, one hand clutching half a brass compass, its needle fixed firmly at 37°21′N. This genetically modified "deep-sea messenger" was actually a criminal syndicate's "living evidence vault," and the pale blue glow inside a lead-sealed glass tube concealed the codes for nuclear smuggling across three oceans.
After escaping alive, he joined forces with Zhao Beihai's daughter, a researcher who studies whales, and followed the clue "the key is hidden in the third gill slit" in pursuit of the culprit. From the mangroves of Xiamen Port to the Antarctic ice fields, he finally discovered that the ultimate code for "living toward the light" meant exchanging one whale's death for a clean ocean.
And the whale that had swallowed him was waiting on the horizon, spouting a column of blue-lit water. Either they would uncover the truth together, or they would perish together.
