Cool-headed genius forensic pathologist x perpetually stone-faced homicide squad captain
Summer in Jiangcheng is often wrapped in humid heat, but even that can’t dispel the solemn air in the homicide squad and forensic department. Three unidentified bodies floating in the river are like stones thrown into a lake, disturbing the peace at the Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Yi Baizhao is the youngest chief forensic pathologist at the bureau. Her white coat is her armor, and her scalpel is her language. She can read a victim’s occupation from the wear on their bones and pinpoint crucial clues in microscopic particles. Her cool gaze is devoted entirely to the pursuit of truth, as if the noise of the outside world has nothing to do with her. It isn’t until Captain He Zhiyou, the “Iceberg,” brings her a deadlocked serial murder case that the two, both accustomed to hiding behind their professionalism, begin to find a rhythm of cooperation amid the cold chain of evidence.
He Zhiyou has been a police officer for over ten years, carrying an unseen burden beneath his badge. He has witnessed too much darkness and grown accustomed to hiding his feelings behind a decisive, forceful manner. Then he meets Yi Baizhao, a forensic pathologist who can calmly collect samples beside a decomposing corpse, yet quietly tie a plain hair ribbon on an unidentified victim. For the first time, a glimmer of light enters his frozen world.
One listens to the “words of the dead” beside the autopsy table, while the other tracks clues at crime scenes. From distinctive algae in Sandao Bay to a special alloy beneath a fingernail, from hidden tattoo symbols to mysterious paint marks, the clues wind together like vines. They point not only to the murders at hand, but also to a past concealed many years ago.
