Breaking the Vows

At the start of the new millennium, newspapers across the country competed to report that heart specialist Tang Zhe had murdered someone and then killed himself out of guilt. On the day he took his own life, a fire broke out at the criminal investigation squad's headquarters. His body was reduced to ashes in the raging flames, and the case files went up in smoke as well. His defense lawyer, Zhang Wanyao, was a rookie criminal defense attorney. He raised no objections throughout the trial and offered no defense at all. In the end, Tang Zhe was found guilty of intentional homicide, and the case was closed because he was dead. Fifteen years later, his son Tang Juan returned from studying abroad and became a criminal defense lawyer. Convinced that his father was innocent, he had secretly kept an eye on Zhang Wanyao for all those years. After returning to China, he joined Zhang's law firm, Yaoting, hoping to uncover the truth about his father's death and clear his name. But Zhang Wanyao kept his lips sealed, refusing to tell him what had really happened to his father...

As Tang Juan works to clear his father's name, he also upholds his duty as a criminal defense lawyer: making sure the innocent are not wronged and that the guilty receive the punishment they deserve. He takes on a series of cases, including the murder of a minor by another minor, a wife who kills her husband after years of domestic abuse, a casual couple whose sexual encounter results in someone's death, a case of a student fighting back against school violence, a death during childbirth involving a surrogate, a celebrity who commits hit-and-run and intentional homicide, and the first public prosecution case involving cyberbullying...

As he handles these cases and searches for the truth about his father's death, Tang Juan becomes Zhang Wanyao's apprentice. The two gradually open up to one another, and their bond grows ever deeper.

Theme: May there be no more injustice in this world.