Qin Feng is a loan officer at the Qing County Rural Commercial Bank. Every day, he chases overdue payments, checks credit records, and writes reports. His only escape is writing mystery novels late at night. He has an unusual ability: given enough information, he can reconstruct an entire crime scene in his mind, as if he were witnessing every move the killer made.
He thought this ability belonged only in fiction. Then a drowning case landed in front of him. The victim was an excellent swimmer, and the spot where he fell into the river lay along his daily route. His blood alcohol level was high, yet his wife said he hadn’t touched a drop that day. The police ruled it an accident, but Qin Feng saw traces left by a killer. Unable to hold back, he shared his deductions with the criminal investigation team captain, and from then on was swept into a bottomless whirlpool.
The clues stretch back to the first body pulled from Qing River: secret funds at the building materials market, mysterious monthly transfers received by a cleaner, a list of people targeted for recruitment that reaches universities across the province, and a false-identity spy who has been embedded in a bank for years. Qin Feng gradually realizes that he is no longer investigating an isolated murder, but a network of infiltration laid by a foreign power over the past twenty years. The other side has noticed him, too. A university group photo of him from years ago is sent to the task force, someone poisons the hospital where his wife works, and an email arrives in the calmest of tones:
“Mr. Qin Feng, I’ve heard so much about you.”
