Heavenly Meridian

The dirtiest secrets in the world aren't buried in old mountain cases. They're the human hearts and old debts sealed away in classified files, hidden from the light.

Jincheng Security Bureau's MNC has always handled only the nation's most secret unsolved cases. Everything it deals with is classified, never entered into public records. More than twenty years ago, a top-secret operation codenamed “Heavenly Vein” suddenly threw everything into chaos. A traitor within the bureau triggered a purge that swept through every member. Countless people died in the upheaval, the case was hastily sealed, and the culprit vanished into the crowd. Only a few survivors remained, barely clinging to life with their secrets, becoming a decades-long nightmare for MNC.

Jiang Xichen was one of the younger generation left behind by that catastrophe. Taken in by bureau veteran Wei Xishan as a child, he joined MNC at fifteen and spent half his life immersed in darkness and intrigue, witnessing schemes within schemes where right and wrong, light and shadow, were impossible to distinguish.

Years later, the old case stirred again. Wei Xishan ordered him to track down a survivor of the purge, Team Leader Liu of the Security Supervision Group. But fate was fickle: one wrong step, and everything was lost. Because of a momentary lapse in judgment by Jiang Xichen, Team Leader Liu, who already carried secrets from the past, met a mysterious death.

The old case was unresolved, and a new killer had emerged.

Clues from the murder pointed straight to the MNC purge massacre of twenty years earlier. The bureau's leadership immediately ordered the MNC Investigation Team to take full charge of the case. The upheaval that had lain dormant for two decades was finally exposed.

No one knew that Jiang Xichen, Jin Han, Su Qi, and Xie Cen were all descendants of MNC members who had died in the purge. Bound to the old conspiracy from birth, they served within the forces of law and order, yet always walked the razor's edge between black and white.

As the investigation deepened, the layers of fog only grew thicker. Every surviving outside contact or witness connected to the “Heavenly Vein” operation died before they could provide a clue. One eerie murder after another revealed cutting-edge technology from elite universities and hidden top talent. The seemingly unrelated cases all pointed toward a revenge plot spanning twenty years.

More horrifying still, the perpetrators behind every murder were Jiang Xichen and Xie Cen, acting while sleepwalking.

When awake, they were investigators standing side by side and upholding justice. Asleep, they were bloodstained executioners stirring up a storm.

Only their friend Jin Han saw through the eerie truth. He knew that all the crimes stemmed from the three people closest to him, but he had no hard evidence and could not bear to push his best friends into the abyss himself. After agonizing over it, he approached Xie Cen, who seemed the most innocent, to plot a way to get them all out of hell. He had no idea that Jiang Xichen was watching his every move.

People's hearts lay hidden within the conspiracy, and the conspiracy hid within their hearts. Jiang Xichen had long suspected his mentor Wei Xishan and no longer wanted to be shackled by MNC. He secretly teamed up with Su Qi to investigate the sealed case on their own. They traced the clues back to their source, every step fraught with danger, until at last every lead circled back to them.

Footage from the surveillance cameras at the old residence tore open the most brutal truth: the sleepwalking killer was Jiang Xichen himself, the ultimate mastermind hidden deepest within a conspiracy spanning twenty years.

By then, the momentum was unstoppable, the crimes weighed heavily upon them, and there was no way back.

The surviving members of the old team died one after another, and the full story of the wrongful purge tied to the twenty-year-old “Heavenly Vein” case gradually came to light. The two traitors who had escaped and gone into hiding, Old Mo and Fei Yanran, saw their past exposed and their crimes on the verge of being revealed. Desperate, they attempted to recreate the old massacre and erase every last piece of evidence and witness.

But they never expected their desperate counterattack to fall straight into the ultimate trap laid by the four young investigators.

When the dust settled, justice was served and the wrongs were righted. The shocking MNC case that had spanned twenty years was finally solved, and the criminals who had hidden for years were brought to light.

But good and evil, right and wrong, have never been simply black and white.

Jiang Xichen and Xie Cen bore the bloodguilt and were detained for trial according to regulations, awaiting the final judgment of the law. But Su Qi and Jin Han, their longtime partners, could not find peace. They knew their friends' crimes stemmed from the psychological shackles left by the wrongful case. They were victims of the old conspiracy, yet also killers under its control.

To seek justice, the two resolutely filed a lawsuit against the entire Security Bureau.

Twenty years of turmoil over Heavenly Vein, a lifetime of brotherly bonds.

As the gavel is about to fall, will the law show no mercy and deliver a sentence? Or will the world acknowledge its failings and finally clear the young men of blame?

This endgame, which began with secrets and ended with human hearts, has yet to reach a verdict.

Theme: Champions of justice