When the turning of the solar terms becomes a countdown to death, ancient wisdom turns into the blueprint for perfect crimes.
On the night of Rain Water, the body of a self-help guru was found in a wasteland on the outskirts of town. It lay in a bizarre position, the scene was spotless, and a newly blossomed magnolia petal rested beside it. When thunder rumbled during Awakening of Insects, a female gallery director met a bizarre death in her own courtyard, with a cold metal insect beside her.
The police discovered that both victims were connected to the cultural world. Each crime scene had an unsettling sense of ritual and hinted at the next solar term. Detective Chen Mo was forced to race against time, entering a world entirely unfamiliar to him: the culture of the twenty-four solar terms, passed down for millennia. With help from an elderly professor, he realized he wasn't dealing with an ordinary criminal, but a “mender” bewitched by ancient heresies. The killer believed the world had strayed from its proper course and was determined to carry out a horrifying “correction” according to a twisted secret ritual based on the solar terms.
From Rain Water's cleansing, to Awakening of Insects' awakening, then the balance of the Spring Equinox… With each change of solar term, a crime designed around its characteristics would take place. Before the next solar term arrived, Chen Mo had to unravel the killer's labyrinth, constructed from ancient texts and the laws of nature, and stop this deranged ritual that used human lives as sacrifices.
Yet they gradually discovered that the killer's ultimate goal went far beyond anything they had imagined… He didn't just want to eliminate “flaws.” At the solstice, he also intended to carry out a final “purification” and usher in a new era for the human world.
This is a race against ancient time, a battle against the dark side of traditional culture. When modern criminal investigation meets the fanaticism of the ancient classics
