On a night of torrential rain, the Nanping Town grain shop was robbed. Lin Yue, a rookie patrol officer, chased the thief into a dead end. The thief got away, but Lin Yue found a kraft-paper envelope tucked into a tear in the cushion of a battered sofa.
Inside were seven photographs: a dead man’s face, a bruised wrist, white pills scattered across black-and-white checkered tiles, the back of a woman in a red dress, a door plaque marked “206,” an old newspaper with its date cut out, and an ID card with the face obscured. The name on it read: Chen Jianguo.
Why would a deputy mayor who had transferred out five years ago turn up in a thief’s possession?
Before he could think it through, his college classmate Su Wanqing arrived out of the blue at the Nanping Town newspaper office. The girl who used to borrow his notes from the seat to his right had someone behind her whom even the powerful people of the capital wouldn’t dare offend.
She smiled and said, “Take me out to dinner,” yet behind the scenes, she slipped him one tip-off letter after another and paved his path to promotion. He went from patrol officer to deputy station chief to bureau chief, and every case he solved added another step beneath his feet. But halfway up the mountain, he suddenly looked back. Every face in those seven photographs was still alive, standing behind him and smiling.
And the true player pulling the strings had been hiding all along at the far end of the storm.
