The Sixth Needle: A Crime Without a Trace

In the autumn of 2002, Chen Xi, a university student in Linjiang, was found dead in her rented apartment. The scene was spotless, and a single tiny puncture needle was embedded in her chest. There were no fingerprints, no footprints, and no biological traces of any kind. Over the next six years, a string of murders followed, each with an identical crime scene. The only thing left behind was the same type of medical needle, discontinued long ago.

Criminal investigator Lu Chen pursued the killer for six years, going from burning with zeal to being suspended for self-reflection, from arresting an innocent person by mistake to picking up the trail again. The killer remained hidden, taunting him with public payphones and declaring war with anonymous black cards. With every murder, the method was honed to perfection. When three pieces of physical evidence finally locked together, the killer stood in the interrogation room and let a complete refusal to speak silence every accusation.

Six needles, six lives, and a truth buried for thirteen years. Only when the final needle fell did Lu Chen realize that the cleanest crime scenes concealed the dirtiest pasts, and that the real flaw had never been in the evidence, but in the most obsessive corners of the human heart.