Rookie Detective Squad: From the Start, Cracking 30 Bizarre Cases

[Mystery and wild speculation + rule-based horror | First-person, episodic investigations, deduction and crime-solving]

I'm Song Xiaoyu. The first trap I fell into as a beat cop was the “Midnight Rules” at an apartment complex in the old city: don't go near the water tank after midnight, and don't squat in the hallway in the dark. The residents said “the spirit of the rules will claim your life.” But a bloodstained red scarf cut in half, old clothes from 2023 in the water tank, and bite marks in a homeless man's diary all said otherwise. What spirit? It was a scheme cooked up by the Abyss Society.

With no teammates, I took on the library's forbidden rules alone. Then Chen Xi, a programmer with social anxiety, suddenly sidled up to me. “The surveillance cuts out for three minutes every day, long enough to use a projector and make a ‘Republican-era ghost.’” Later, while investigating sedatives at a nursing home, Yang Guang, a forensic pathologist who fainted at the sight of blood, turned away and felt for a medicine bottle. “There's a special toxin in here. The old folks were being controlled.” Then, during the case of the mountain god ritual in an ancient town, Su Qingyun, a gossip reporter, showed up with an old newspaper. “Every case you've investigated revolves around the same symbol.”

We uncovered an emotion-collecting device in a bookstore and a candidate trap on a cruise ship. In the end, we were dragged into the Society's “Ultimate Rules Game”: “Reveal your teammates' secrets within 24 hours, or everyone dies.” I admitted I'd once let a Society operative go. Yang Guang clutched his brother's autopsy report. Su Qingyun pulled out her grandmother's diary. Chen Xi quietly said, “I wrote an emotion-collecting program.” But we didn't turn on one another. Using loopholes we'd accumulated over 30 cases, we blew up the mountain base.

A slip of paper fluttered through the ruins: “‘Unsolvable crimes’ will never disappear. A new set of rules has been activated.” A pale golden symbol glimmered in the setting sun. I took out the evidence bag. This investigation wasn't over yet.