Detective Qin Feng

Set in Ancheng, a small city on the central-southern border at the turn of the millennium in the late 1990s, this story follows criminal investigation captain Qin Feng and his comrades on a fiery journey, painting a blood-streaked portrait of society at the turn of the century. This fictional border city is a prism of its era, reflecting the tangled landscape of crime in a China undergoing transformation. Bloody murder scenes intertwine with backroom deals between officials and businessmen, while gangsters’ flashing knives clash with the cold glint of police badges from dusk till dawn.

The story is not continuous; it is made up of cases of different types. At its heart is Qin Feng, the “Crime Hunter,” and his four-person criminal investigation team: the burly, bold deputy captain Gu Dapeng, meticulous technician Xiao Tao (Tao Xin), and Fan Kai, a top graduate of the police academy. The four detectives join forces with Wu Min, a forensic pathologist at the Municipal Public Security Bureau’s Forensic Center and Qin Feng’s confidante and lover, to form a crack team. As they investigate serial murders, violent criminal gangs in the city, and tangled corruption scandals, they reveal both the evolution of forensic techniques and the subtle spectrum of human nature under extreme conditions. When the smoke clears in the final chapter, Gu Dapeng takes a bullet meant for Qin Feng, Tao Xin leaves his battlefield trauma behind to teach at the police academy, and Fan Kai, now wearing the captain’s badge, stands atop the Public Security Bureau, gazing out at the neon lights of the new district and the shadows of the old. The cases left untold lie frozen in the stack of yellowed files in Qin Feng’s office drawer...