A torrential downpour washed away part of a construction site, exposing three female skeletons stacked on top of one another. The ring finger on each skeleton's left hand had been severed at the base.
Lu Zhengyuan, captain of the criminal investigation team, took charge of the case, only to discover that the oldest skeleton belonged to someone who had vanished on his very first day as a police officer, twenty-three years ago. Back then, he had written “No leads” in the case file. Now the remains lay right before him.
The crematorium worker was arrested, then mysteriously died after naming his superior. A mole within the police force was exposed, and witnesses were killed one after another. The “Rainy Night Butcher” case, closed twenty years ago, was reopened. Then a mysterious text arrived on Lu Zhengyuan's phone: “It's time to dig up that old case from twenty years ago.”
His apprentice, Zhou Yuan, grew stronger amid blood and fire. The veteran forensic examiner, Old Han, had safeguarded crucial evidence for twenty years. The owner of a small restaurant finally offered testimony he had kept hidden for half his life. From rookie at a local station to captain of the criminal investigation team, Lu Zhengyuan wasn't pursuing a single killer, but an entire web.
At the end of that web sat his former superior, code-named “The Painter.”
The truth had come twenty-three years late, but it would not stay hidden forever. Some truths, however, were so heavy that it took nine lives and three severed fingers to bring them to light.
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