I Became a Detective Through My Underworld Informants in Hong Kong

Zhong Yongtang likes to sit beneath the big banyan tree. There are lots of “people” there to play with her and tell her stories.

But the children at the orphanage call her a freak and gang up to exclude her.

When she's ten, she's taken in and brought to the chaotic Kowloon Walled City.

After that, she gains three ghost family members: her grandfather, the former head of a wealthy family; her grandmother, a Cantonese opera star; and her book-loving delinquent older brother. She also gains friends who worked in all kinds of industries when they were alive.

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An accident costs Grandma more than half her accumulated merit, leaving her soul weak.

To build her merit back up, Zhong Yongtang races through three months of training for trainee inspectors at Wong Chuk Hang. During her internship, she uses aggressive methods to help solve cases and is admitted early to East Kowloon Major Crimes Unit B.

The fatherly, old-fashioned head of Unit A declares that she won't last six months relying on unorthodox methods, and that she'll end up transferred to guard a reservoir.

Zhong Yongtang says nothing. Her brain and the unbeatable informant System behind her will prove everything.

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A headless male body is found hanging in the wilderness. The victim's identity has yet to be established when a second and third body turn up, sparking public panic.

There is no identification at the scene, and the victim doesn't match any missing person reports. The police have no leads, and the case makes no progress.

As she watches the autopsy, Zhong Yongtang repeats what her friend, a model who died young, once said: “With muscles that evenly toned, he wasn't a model, but he must have worked out a lot.”

In the end, that comment becomes the key to cracking the case.

A famous actress goes missing from a stage, then appears late at night in a red dress and falls to her death at an abandoned television studio. Gossip magazines play up the ghost stories, spreading fear everywhere.

Zhong Yongtang's ghostly informants pass along clues one after another.

Ghost A, a Cantonese opera fanatic: I saw her leave through the backstage.

Ghost B, a fan of paranormal events who likes wandering abandoned buildings at night: I saw someone strangle her with a rope. It was your grandma, who is so weak she needs to inhale sandalwood incense every day.

Ghost C, a paparazzo from a defunct newspaper: I took photos of her in a scandal years ago!

Bit by bit, their words piece together the truth, uncovering a cold case that's been unsolved for twenty years.

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A spirit matchmaker calls out the heiress in a prominent family murder case, a baby crying in the middle of the night at a haunted elementary school, a ghostly murder in a locked room...

With help from the powerful informant System, Zhong Yongtang and her team crack one bizarre case after another, making the hottest headlines in the city: “New Recruit Sees Through Ghostly Schemes, Transforms into Ghost-Hunting Detective.”

Meanwhile, the head of Unit A is not only furious, but also becomes a murder suspect.

P.S. The male lead is Lu Shiyao.

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Blurb for The Unlucky Girl's Makeover into a Rising Star in the Police Force [Nineties]:

Third-person narration, with a lightly ensemble-cast feel.

My name is Feng Shiyi, and I've been unlucky since birth.

My bad luck has ranged from being abandoned at birth to opening a bag of candy and finding nothing but lemon flavors.

Still, I have a kind adoptive mother and four friends I've known since childhood, so I had a pretty happy upbringing.

After graduating from the police academy, I get assigned to Major Crimes Unit B at the Yau Ma Tei Police Station. That's where my journey begins, going from unlucky girl to rising star in the police force.

On my first day at work, a gold shop is robbed right in front of me. As a concerned citizen, I help my boss's nemesis solve a serial murder case.

On my third day, I'm trapped in an elevator while conducting interviews, where I spot a sleeping baby in the stroller across from me. The baby looks exactly like the jewelry tycoon's kidnapped son.

On my tenth day, I take the wrong bag on the bus when it brakes suddenly. Inside, I find a bloodstained dagger and a diary.

On day N, I'm being interviewed when, once again, my terrible luck leads me to the key clue in a case!

Theme: Good people get what they deserve.