A strange express box in the early morning, like a stone thrown into stagnant water, caused a storm in the life of illustrator Lin Mo. Hidden in the cardboard box half soaked with dark brown liquid is a sketchbook full of secrets of the Handshake Building - the silhouette of the old lady on the 5th floor picking up the red thread, the back of the 702 woman clutching the wooden box, and the last stroke of the programmer from across the street before falling from the building, are all faintly visible in the wet paint.
The handwriting revealed by turpentine, the code wrapped in red thread, the secret code of gear bites... When Lin Mo dug deeper for clues in the painting, he discovered that the "accident" three years ago was never the end: the old Wang's trembling fingertips when counting coins hid hidden debts, the unburned express delivery slip in the old lady's brazier was entangled with traces of smuggling, and the truth recorded by Zhao Jing and her daughter with a paintbrush had long been tied into an unbreakable knot by Aunt Hong's confession line.
From the account books under the floor of 702 to the skeletons in the secret passage of the royal tombs, from the machine tool codes in the textile factory to the "Red Thread" scrolls in the art museum, every secret soaked in paint hides the struggles of ordinary people: some use silence to protect their loved ones, some use lies to atone, and some use their lives to piece together the puzzle of the truth.
When the last piece of the maple leaf bracelet is put together, all the red threads are finally revealed in the light - it turns out that the echoes hidden in the express boxes, picture frames, and account books are just for the disappeared people to say "I have been here" in the folds of paint.
