In the height of summer 2025, Jiangcheng is shrouded in unrelenting rain when a bizarre murder shatters the city’s calm. Beneath a landmark sculpture in Riverside Park, Zhang Hao, creative director at an advertising agency, is found dead in a strange “sculpture-like” pose. His skin is stiff as metal, the patterns on his body perfectly aligned with the sculpture’s contours, and the only mark on his neck is a pinprick fine as a hair. Deputy criminal investigation captain Li Mo rushes to the scene, but the rain has washed away the clues, leaving him lost in a fog.
The arrival of Su Qing, a criminal psychology expert from the provincial department, gives the case a new direction. From the victim’s “sacrificial” pose, she detects the killer’s obsession with symbolism and surmises that they are likely connected to the arts or creative industries. But just as the clues begin to take shape, a second “sculpture-like” body turns up. The victim is a designer who had competed with Zhang Hao, and the body bears the same signs as the first, along with mysterious patterns and a tiny pinprick.
The serial murders send the whole city into a panic. As Li Mo and Su Qing examine the crime scenes and question the victims’ acquaintances, they discover that all the victims were connected to an unsolved design plagiarism case from three years earlier. Fingerprint comparisons, drug tests, surveillance footage, and other clues gradually piece together a revenge plot concealed behind the glamorous creative industry. But the killer’s methods grow ever more meticulous, and the next target has already been quietly chosen. They have seventy-two hours to crack the ultimate code behind the “sculpture murders” and prevent more tragedies.
Very beautiful, rare