Lin Wei, a detective in the major crimes unit, finds an old mark, “0713,” in the palm of the seventh victim.
It’s from a case she closed herself five years ago. The killer, Zhao Ming, is dead, and the file is sealed. But the mark on the new corpse is identical, down to the exact angle.
As she digs deeper, her partners suffer one incident after another. The coroner’s report has been altered, and her younger sister and six-year-old niece vanish at the same time. The only person who speaks up for her is Shen Yan, the new criminal investigation consultant. But the bottom of the coffee cup he gives her bears the same number.
Tucked inside the case file is a group photo from the police academy taken twenty years ago. Someone’s face in the back row has been scraped away with a razor.
Lin Wei turns it over. On the back, someone has written five words in pencil:
“He’s right beside you.”
