Three years ago, forensic pathologist Shen Zhiyu resigned from the city's criminal investigation team amid a scandal over "contaminated evidence," becoming an outsider at a grassroots forensic appraisal center. Then a woman's body wrapped in whale bones surfaced in a river on the outskirts of town. The evidence at the scene pointed straight to the unsolved Whale Fall serial case from ten years ago, and he was recalled to the major crimes unit despite the controversy. The unit's leader, Lu Chengxiao, is known as a "mad dog": he ignores rules when investigating and stops at nothing to catch a killer, yet keeps an especially close eye on this former colleague with a "blemish" on his record. From the "Woman in the Glass Coffin" to the "Amusement Park Puppet Case," the two learn to work together through one strange case after another, while Shen Zhiyu's hidden wounds and Lu Chengxiao's obsessive protectiveness gradually come to light. As the investigation deepens, they discover that every new case is reenacting a tragedy from ten years ago, and that Shen Zhiyu's "blemish" back then was actually part of a deadly trap laid to cover up the truth. When the killer sets their sights on Shen Zhiyu, Lu Chengxiao finally drops his guard: "I couldn't protect you back then. This time, no one is laying a hand on you."
Theme: Using criminal investigations as a lens to explore the relationship between "truth and its cost" and "protection and redemption," this story challenges the black-and-white view of justice. It follows the protagonists as they hold on to their principles in the shadows and find redemption in each other, while the individual cases also reflect real-world issues such as school bullying, domestic violence, and cyberbullying.
