Crime Investigation: The Crane Knows at Midnight

[The completed-book reviews contain spoilers, so read at your own risk! Feel free to leave a rating after you finish~]

A new cook has arrived at Jici Temple's vegetarian kitchen. He's strikingly beautiful, doesn't abstain from meat or alcohol, and insults everyone he meets, living or dead. Still, he's helped the police solve plenty of cold cases:

A bride stuffed in a suitcase and dumped on the street, a suspected victimized wife calling to ask for help, a dead man knocking on the door in the middle of the night, a bloody six-fingered print left behind…

Everything is baffling, but Lin Hezhi always manages to make the dead “tell” the truth.

*

One day, a wealthy businessman came seeking him out to discuss a cold case.

Lin Hezhi listened to the man tell his story in vivid detail. Without even looking up, he tipped the tofu he'd cut into hair-thin strands into the vegetarian hot pot. “Why make up a bloody story and ask people to find the killer? Is it meant to whet your appetite? Any dietary restrictions?”

A month later, the bloody story came true.

*

The police tried several times to recruit Lin Hezhi as a consultant, but he refused to leave the rundown temple. Seeing how bustling the vegetarian kitchen was, an embarrassed officer smiled awkwardly. “Those scars on your hands, you got them from practicing with a knife, right?”

The old monk smiled faintly. “They're precept scars.”

“I don't have anything I can give you. Perhaps the truth, and nothing else.”

Reader's guide:

1. The male lead has a small benign tumor between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the amygdala. It makes him exceptionally intelligent, but he struggles to empathize with others and longs to experience human emotions. He's asexual, and his only love is solving cases. No CP, no romance.

2. Please avoid spoilers in the comments if possible, given the subject matter. The author has no experience working in forensic medicine, so feel free to point out any mistakes.

Published modern crime novel → "Crime Investigation: Rose of the Forbidden Zone"

My new sci-fi mystery, "Jianshouqing", is now underway~

The Tianxian Special Forces Team has been assigned a “nepotism hire” who only wants to coast until retirement. He's fair and handsome, has an F-rated combat ability, and nobody knows what his illness is. Once a month, he passes out from pain.

The sadistic instructor Salienke says, “If I let a good-for-nothing like you pass the assessment, I'll go give myself ten lashes in the punishment room.”

*

On the higher-dimensional battlefield, every soul develops an ability from the core of its desires. Yang Yu's psychic ability is a tiny, chubby mushroom glowing green.

“I suggest you name your ability [Useless].”

“Zero defense? Its only attack is spitting out a few spores? When danger comes, you have to root yourself to the ground and can't even run?!”

Yet whether faced with his teammates' sarcasm, Captain Salienke's death glare, or an S-class contaminant that drives people insane, Yang Yu's main strategy is to remain emotionally stable. Extremely stable. :)

*

Nobody expected Yang Yu to scrape through every assessment;

During mock combat, he led the bottom-ranked squad to victory;

When higher dimensions invaded, glowing green hyphae saved one teammate after another, and the tentacled S-class contaminant curled itself into a well-behaved little octopus before the glowing mushroom…

Nobody knows that Yang Yu is an agent for the Star Alliance Security Department. He spent three years undercover and single-handedly destroyed the Alliance's largest contaminant-crystal smuggling network, but was badly injured in the process. He still has the Dark Web's highest bounty on his head: an S-class ability that excels at mental control and inducing hallucinations, with the codename “Jianshouqing.”

Theme: A kind environment encourages people to make kind choices. We can always choose to be kind.