I have a master’s degree in criminal psychology, but I’ve been thrown into a Republican-era novel as a cannon-fodder supporting character who dies from the start.
My predecessor was treated as a disposable pawn by her family and died in an “accident” on the eve of an arranged marriage.
This time, I tear up the marriage contract, take the entrance exam for the Shanghai Municipal Police Bureau, and become its first female detective.
A red-dancing hostess at the Paramount dies by suicide in a locked room? I point to the mascara residue beneath her flawless makeup. “Murder. The killer is left-handed and couldn’t bear unrequited love.”
A poisoning in a banker’s inheritance battle? I scan everyone’s microexpressions. “You’re the real culprit, the most dutiful youngest son.”
With my ability to read microexpressions and profile behavior, I become Shanghai’s sensation, the “mind-reading detective.”
Those who mocked me, saying “A woman solving crimes? What a joke,” eventually break down and confess in front of me.
Only Lu Chenzhou, the cold-blooded, stone-faced head honcho of the police bureau, keeps me under his watchful gaze.
He stubs out his cigarette and corners me against the wall. “Shen Zhiwei, your profiles are accurate. So can you tell what I think about every night?”
Later, the string of bizarre cases I investigate leads straight to his powerful family.
When he pulls the trigger, he shields me behind him and aims into the true darkness.
“Don’t be afraid,” he says hoarsely. “My profile tells me you’re the one person I can’t afford to lose: my accomplice.”
