History is not a train running in one direction, but a crime scene buried beneath layer upon layer. Beneath every page of "official" history may lie an injustice never avenged, a heresy deliberately erased, or a civilization's agonizing struggle at a crossroads.
Detective Chen Jian dies in the line of duty, only to wake aboard a "time machine" beyond the bounds of time. He is told that his new mission is to enter the long river of history and uncover the "anomalies" buried beneath the dust of time: strange cases omitted from official records and left unspoken in unofficial accounts.
From a Qin craftsman sealed alive inside a terracotta warrior, to ghostly fires that never go out beneath the waters of the Battle of Red Cliffs; from a hundred people who vanished from Along the River During the Qingming Festival, to a cave in the Dunhuang murals that foretells the future... Chen Jian uses the sharp tools of modern criminal investigation to cut through history's skin. He sees the defiance of ordinary people, witnesses the helplessness of those who love and destroy each other, and feels the cold, immense weight of systems and eras crushing individuals beneath them.
Yet as the truth flakes away layer by layer like verdigris from bronze, Chen Jian is horrified to discover that every case points to a deeper mystery. The origin of the time machine, the truth behind his own "resurrection," and the mysterious woman Mo Yu, who has watched him in silence across the dynasties... The police badge in his hand is untarnished, but what it reflects is the image of a man trapped in history's own closed loop.
