The Wish-Powered Detective

Shen Qinglan can smell the scent of people's wishes. Regret carries the damp, earthy smell of mud. Desire burns with a scorching, smoky fragrance. The will to survive is sharp as the scent of trees deep in the forest. But when a wish is tampered with, its fragrant patterns instantly fall into disarray, trembling in the air like broken threads of fate. While investigating a rainy-night disappearance involving a “mismatch in the scent of a wish,” she forms an investigative team with wish-force analyst Fei Che, profiler Zhou Qi, and cultural researcher Su Li. Together, they travel through the city's outskirts, tracking scattered traces of wish-force from around the world. Prayers carried by river lanterns, incense burned at festivals, the aged scent of cold Nordic pines... Wishes from different cultures intertwine in her sense of smell, weaving into layered fragrant patterns. In the end, they all point to an international wish-making organization called the Returned Wish Bureau. The deeper the investigation goes, the more clearly she smells that familiar yet foreign scent. It is the wish that was stolen from her, and the truth behind her lost childhood. Wishes can be traded, copied, and transplanted. And the world is heading toward a “wish-force storm” powerful enough to tear people's hearts apart. To prevent the collapse of wish-force, she must enter the heart of the Mist Belt and, as a “wish-force guardian,” mend the thread of fate that was severed.