Three years ago, a kidnapping case turned negotiation expert Jiang Xu into a sinner in everyone’s eyes.
He had believed that words and empathy could save people. But the truth was buried, his reputation was ruined, and he retreated to a quiet psychology studio in Wutong Alley, living like an island cut off from the world.
Then one day, he discovered he could hear what people left unsaid.
Within three meters, thoughts surged like a tide. Someone would smile and thank him while plotting to destroy him; someone else would lower their head in silence, their mind full of pleas for help they didn’t dare cry out.
But the real test wasn’t whether he could hear secrets. It was whether, after hearing them, he would still be willing to wait for someone to admit the truth in their own words.
He set a rule for himself: listen to what people say, not what they think.
The rainy season in Binhai City was muggy, and lamplight flickered along Wutong Alley. His studio reopened, and one case followed another: debt mediation, boardroom battles, witnesses hounded by rumors, residents whose privacy had been sold off... Behind every case was an unseen hand putting a price on secrets and packaging people’s hearts for sale.
The organization was called “Listening to the Wind.” The failed rescue three years ago had been nothing more than one of their market demonstrations.
Shen Zhiyi, the head of the Shen family, was proud and cold, and trusted no one. Yet with him, she learned to speak up for the first time. Su Nian, a sharp weapon on the criminal police force, believed in procedure and justice, and believed he shouldn’t have to atone alone. Two women, both afraid of losing control: one drew close in silence, the other protected him through her actions.
When the truth could be obtained so easily by eavesdropping, he insisted on taking the hardest path: waiting for someone to tell the truth of their own accord, waiting for a city to remember his name again.
And the “Deep Listener,” who could never hear people’s thoughts, had been waiting for him in the dark for a long time.
