Blood Washed into Pearls [Love in 1979]

In the spring of 1979, as every household celebrated the New Year, Xi Qing, the last educated youth still working at the Mengwei Rubber Plantation, finally received his notice that he could return to the city. But the news that arrived with it was that his mother had died. The belief that had kept him going vanished all at once. Xi Qing no longer wanted to make peace with the world. He walked through the bustling dragon dance parade and into Lake Miyin.

In the spring of 1979, as families gathered to celebrate the New Year, the Huxin Police Station received a report that someone had jumped into the lake. On duty, Officer Yu Zhuozhou cursed his bad luck and smashed his wine cup. He took off his uniform and jumped into the water to pull out a pale, soaked young man. After shouting, slapping, and picking mud and sand out of his mouth, the young man slowly came to. But after a fit of coughing, he spat out a segment of a human finger bone in front of the onlookers.

When he learned what had happened, Xi Qing immediately threw up bile and said, "Thanks, but no thanks. There's nothing left in this world worth living for. I'm doing fine, and next time I won't come back to life."

So when Yu Zhuozhou received the second call, then the third... and finally the Nth, he couldn't take it anymore and yelled at Xi Qing:

"I saved your life! You don't get to throw it away whenever you feel like it! For my sake, you have to keep living!"

After that, the two kept getting caught up in one case after another, forming an unbreakable bond.

Years later, beneath the New Year's fireworks, Captain Yu, flushed with wine and full of himself, wrapped an arm around his boyfriend and slurred, "Qing, I really adore you! The first time I saw you, you were eating a human hand, and I didn't even mind!" His boyfriend kicked him off the bed, mortified and furious. "You're the one who ate a human hand!"

The recipient is a troubled young man from the outset, weighed down by hardship and trapped in his own thoughts, unable to get past that hurdle. At the darkest moment of his life, he was lucky enough to reach out and grasp a warm light.

Blurb dated November 16, 2021

It's a deliberately cheesy title! Here's my 2022 resolution: to write a serious, meticulous, focused period crime procedural with no plot going off the rails. [Important] Police officers drinking while on duty is a violation, and swimming while drunk is even more inadvisable! But the story is set in 1979, so... well, things weren't quite so strict.

Top: Yu Zhuozhou, former captain of the criminal investigation squad. Later removed from his post for dereliction of duty and held responsible as a leader, he was reassigned as a junior officer at a local police station.

Bottom: From unemployed young man to art teacher.

I'm still sorting through my ideas and putting the story together. Please give it a follow.

Theme: The righteous way of the world is full of hardship